Before podcasts were cool

Reading Time: 3 minutes

This week I enjoyed some replies to Kim Kardashian West’s excitement about the Serial podcast. They were mocking that antiquated platforms like MySpace and Blackberry Messenger would be buzzing with news about a podcast which kind of peaked back in 2015.

It made me reflect on podcasts in general.

For those unfamiliar, a podcast is just radio on the internet which fetches new episodes when they’re ready, and you can play them whenever you want. How cool is that.

I’ve enjoyed listening to them for roughly 12 years now.

Podcasts now download onto my 70 year old mother’s smart phone, after she got me to subscribe her to something she wanted to follow.

From what was initially quite a complicated and nerdy pursuit, it’s wonderful to see ditsy reality TV stars are now enjoying them too.

My own tastes in podcasts have changed over time.

I thought I’d archive my current subscriptions for future reference. No doubt, this will continue to change over time.

Ryan's podcast subscriptions
List of my podcasts subscriptions – Sep 2018

I think I’d classify all my podcasts into a Venn diagram of:

  1. For fun
  2. To learn
  3. and the overlap of both.

I’ve listed them in the order that I tend to listen to them.

Fun:

  • Criminal – Perhaps the greatest podcast voice ever, Phoebe Judge.
  • Everything is alive – This is an interview with an inanimate object willing to share its perspective. There has been a can of cola, light pole, pillow. They all have a story to tell. It’s early days for this one, and shows some promise.
  • note to self – one I’m not always into, allegedly detailing the impacts that technology has on everyday life.

Learning:

  • 99% invisible – For me, one of the best podcasts around, certainly the best web site – covering the hidden design and architecture which shapes our world.
  • Design of Business, Business of Design – very cool interviews with design leaders and the role it plays.
  • Freakonomics Radio – if you enjoyed the book, you’ll enjoy the podcast with author Stephen J. Dubner or Steven Dubner (depending where on the Wikipedia page you look).
  • Stanford Uni’s DFJ Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders – maybe my first ever subscription. Each episode brings amazing insights from an expert in entrepreneurship.
  • HBR Ideacast – Nice short summaries of latest Harvard Business Review topics, often including interviews with the authors.
  • Coffee pods – Aussie Holly Ransom interviews leaders in various fields that can offer some wisdom and experience to inspire others.

Equal parts of Fun and Learning:

  • No such thing as a fish – from the QI TV Show elves, a weekly podcast of the funniest/quirkiest facts they found.
  • ReplyAll – nerdy podcast about the Internet, so about everything in general.
    Bit of an addendum: there was a significant protest by some ex-staffers regarding the show’s culture and management. Disappointing to hear, glad I had stopped listening before all this came out.
  • The Allusionist – fun accounts about the origin and interesting parts of language.

I used to listen to some which would fall completely under the Motivational category. But quite contradictory, I found they were all very easy to tire of.
The better ones were The Tim Ferriss Podcast, (though over 5 minutes of ads led me to take some of his Four Hour Work Week advice and drop media inputs which don’t meet your goals). And Lewis Howes is a great guy and has a popular podcast called School Of Greatness – though for me, he used it far too much to promote his books. So I currently have no motivating ones in the playlist.

Similar to the old iPod adage, you might be able to tell a lot about someone from the podcasts they subscribe to, or don’t. And it’s always interesting to find others who like listening to similar stuff ..

The next phase of more mainstream podcasting might be interesting as major players get involved, and advertising becomes more sophisticated and captures larger (though maybe more fickle) audiences.

Podcasts have been an invaluable companion for my daily commutes. And I’d like to think they’ll get more useful with things like smart speaker devices, and connected homes.

I’ll check back some time to see what’s changed.

Chance encounter with The King, and Review: Out Of The Shadows

Reading Time: 3 minutesDuring our Australian holidays, we had a chance encounter with rugby league great, Wally Lewis while walking into Brisbane Airport.
It’s interesting how sometimes you can spot a celebrity from a mere flash of them quite a distance away.

He was kind enough to pose for a photo with us.
In case he needed some convincing, to seal the deal I mentioned I did name my second son “Lewis” afterall.
I forgot to add that my first son is Myles, so we have pretty close to the famous Wally Lewis and Gene Miles combination.

Wally and wife Jacqui were lovely during our short interaction/interruption while they were on their way to the Dally M awards.
We were grateful, and it had me recounting to the boys again how inspiring he had been as a player.

 

Out Of The Shadows

A few days later at my parents’ place, the boys were flicking through some papers on the bookshelf when they came across the Wally Lewis book, “Out Of The Shadows”; by Neil Cadigan, and Wally Lewis.

We should ignore the fact that my Lewis saw the cover and excitedly exclaimed “Oh look, it’s Dr Phil!”

I decided to read the book before leaving Brisbane, as a result of our chance encounter at the airport.

When you’re like me and average reading 5 books a year, completing an entire book in just three days is what’s called a challenge.

Reading it was quite simple really. The book was a lovely and warm account. I’m probably similar to a lot of Queenslanders, who knew only some of the story of Wally’s epilepsy. The book gives great perspective. It shares the full chronology leading up to the diagnosis, and then living long-term with the disorder while still leading a busy professional schedule. I really had no idea how big an ordeal this was, and accounts from others supplemented the events along the way. It really uncovered my own ignorance around epilepsy. It’s no spoiler that the story has a happy ending. Many aren’t so lucky.

I’m glad I read this book, which I was certainly encouraged to do after seeing The King in the flesh. It made me appreciate how inspiring Wally is as a man.

A wonderful account of The King’s biggest battle outside of rugby league, epilepsy. It was nice to read more about the man who inspired so many on the sporting field, and now is arguably doing even more important work in lifting awareness of the disorder – and even taking control of your health generally.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

View all my GoodReads reviews

 

Also, I went through our Brisbane holiday photos from 12 months earlier.
On that trip we managed to catch a Broncos home match, where the boys got their first encounter with King Wally Lewis, the Emperor of Lang Park!

Wally Lewis statue
Broncos vs Parramatta Eels 24/08/2017

 

2016 Australian Holidays – from the archives

Reading Time: 8 minutesQuite a surprise to find I had blogged while on holidays back in 2016, but hadn’t published at the time. Actually uploaded two years later on 24/08/2018. Better late than never.

30/06/2016 – Let the holiday begin

This was the day we were to fly to Brisbane to begin our “Summer Holiday” in Australia’s Winter. But first I had to go into work.

Work was ridiculously busy.  It started joyfully enough, knowing I was almost on my way. Though more and more approvals kept me stuck at my desk.

The boys were amazingly good at the airport and on the plane.  Owen thankfully wore himself out at the boarding gate while we were waiting. He was doing a lot of running, along with a fair share of pole dancing.  Within an hour and half he was fast asleep and looking very comfortable.

I found myself quite tired too.  Though when I just began to nod off, a cabin crew would wake me for a drink or dinner.

As I checked out the travel map for our flight, It wasn’t a good sign that my first thought was ‘Is that all!?”

The Singapore Airlines cabin crew were all very friendly. The ladies’ uniform looks almost uncomfortably flattering. Their tiny feminine body seemed to be mostly hips.

Myles was trying to nod off.  And Lewis definitely should have. He spilled orange juice, and dropped a huge pile of skittles all over the floor; and he keeps talking at full volume as if he’s outside the plane sitting on the wing trying to be heard.

Today was my brother’s birthday.  In what has become an annual tradition the boys and I left an Arabic rendition of “Happy Birthday to you” on his voice mail.

One surprising thing, I had to return my duty-free alcohol I bought. It seems only from Terminal 3 there is an arrangement to box the alcohol – needed to enter in Australia. The cashier didn’t know, it was only when he consulted his supervisor that he learned.

 

03/07/2016 – Gold Coast Marathon Day!

I managed a decent amount of sleep on account of Owen needing me to snuggle him in bed.  I still woke up plenty of times.  Once or twice after worrying dreams of missing the event as usual.

The tram to the start line was too packed. Instead I went back to the front of my hotel where charter buses were picking up runners. Lesson-learned.  Don’t pass up a perfectly good transport to try for something more convenient.  On the bus I noticed everyone except a couple of runners had Asics brand running shoes. The more I looked around the more obvious it was. Clearly Dubai has very different market to Australia. I seemed a complete foreigner, perhaps I could have been wearing a grass skirt.

We got to the start line shortly before 6am. Lots of half-marathoners had to rush.

It was quite freezing.  A hot coffee was necessary, and tasted amazing.

My pre-race toilet prep worked a treat.  I felt great from the start. Conditions were absolutely perfect. Crisp to begin, and not getting above warm. I had huge appreciation for all the volunteers and thanked them when I could.  And the spectators were brilliant.  Miyuki from Dubai was running with me, and was hugely popular with the hordes of passionate Japanese passionate Japanese cheers squads.  The Australians had a bit more trouble pronouncing her name from reading it on her bib. I didn’t add a nickname to my bib when registering. I figured it would show my first name instead. Nope, it showed nothing.  So imagine my surprise when a total stranger yelled out “Go Rhino!” It turned out the guy next to me was nicknamed Rhino also. Though people didn’t need to your names for encouragement.

Lots of signs said things like “Go complete stranger” or “I’m so proud of you, perfect stranger”.  There were so many good ones.  I liked the thought behind the image of the Mushroom from Super Mario games, with “Tap here for free power up”. I used as many of those as I could. “Unless you have puked, fainted, or died, keep going!”

One family had the song “We are the champions” playing loudly.  Though instead of those words, they sang “YOU are the champions ..”  The interesting thing with an out and back marathon course is that 20-30 minutes later when we ran back past the same spot they were singing the exact same song. That’s dedication.

I also loved other music along the way, which showcased a variety of bands.  There were two drummers going like crazy. To keep it up seemed to need as much stamina as running 42kms.

My favourite sign of all was in the first kilometre as we ran over the bridge for the first time.  A lady standing there was proudly waving a “You’re nearly there” poster.  As we did pass 1km I did the math and shared we have only 41.2km to go. I’m not sure how well that was appreciated by the runners around me.

In the final stages the going got tough, but I had no worries of finishing.  I just wanted to see the finish line – really wanted to see that line.  (Perhaps the feeling related to my former Gold Coast marathon where I had terrible cramps in the final 200 metres.)

The support heading to the finish was amazing. I particularly like seeing the Indigenous Marathon Foundation (IMF) mob – under the inspirational Rob De Castella.  Under their tent, they all gave such a hearty cheers.  I proudly gave high 5s all round. Even at the finish a lady with a camera obviously from IMF seeing me wearing an IMF shirt decided instead of taking my picture to give me high 5s.

 

04/07/2016 – Dreamworld

We all enjoyed seeing Australia’s premier theme park.  The entry was part of a deal with our accommodation, Paradise Resort. In hindsight, it would have been nice to have invested further and avoided the queues.  We waited 1 hour before doing the Thunder River Rapids ride (tragically, 2 months later that ride would be shut down forever).

We had to wait another hour for the boys who wanted to do Mick Doohan’s Motocross ride.

The Tower Of Terror seemed to have almost a 1 hour wait also, which Lewis and Corey persevered with – which seemed worth it.

05/07/2016 – The rain’s set in

We woke slightly before our breakfast meeting time to learn of a bad weather forecast. It was likely to rain all day so we agreed to drop our plan to visit Movie World. Instead, we decided to go ice skating in the resort we were staying.

All boys had a go. Owen picked it up extremely quickly. Bracken enjoyed it quite nervously – hanging on to the side walls rather than using the penguin-shaped guides. Corey joined us a little later to help Bracken, and he immediately enjoyed it more.

Lewis really put in a lot of effort. And Myles as expected was quite fine.

For lunch we went out for first & chips at the popular Pete’s Fish & Chips near Sea World.

From there we decided to not call it a day and take the Aqua Duck submersible vehicle. It was cool! The car had no suspension, so quite bouncy on the road. But it was amazing to drive into the water. All boys got to drive the boat out at sea which was fun.

For dinner Mum bought stuff to make hot dogs which went down a treat. Lewis may have had 5 or 6. The little boys and the older boys were very tired so we cut short our game of Sequence.

 

06/07/2018 – Helicopter ride and 2nd Dreamworld visit

The helicopter ride from Sea World was busier than I expected. We happened to see Tom Keneally also waiting.

The helicopter journey was more bumpy than I anticipated. The landing was the opposite and very smooth and straight-forward.

From there we went straight to Dreamworld for the rest of the day, where the boys enjoyed new rides and we all checked out the Peter Brock exhibit.

08/07/2016 – Farewell Paradise Resort, and final Dreamworld visit

We had our final morning at the hotel before visiting Dreamworld one last night.

Myles did the Tower Of Terror ride almost reluctantly. He wanted to do it, and not have Lewis just talking about it constantly. Right at the end before we got on, Myles was getting upset and said he didn’t want to do it. The attendants were very helpful and had obviously gone through the routine many times. They assured him after getting his name. Then when that didn’t work the lady said she would slow down the ride for Myles. Myles felt bad having it slowed down for everyone. He didn’t notice the wink she gave me. The story definitely helped. Although Myles looked really freaked out on the ride. Regardless, he enjoyed it. And not wanting to do it again.

Before that we took the train ride to the Corroboree section and saw the native animals. They were awesome, especially the koala which we got to pat,a 4 year old called “Cinnamon”.

The kangaroos weren’t too fussed about us. Boys enjoyed the indigenous exhibit, particularly The Mimis animated story.

We didn’t do many other rides.  The boys preferred to have fun in the Madagascar balls game. Our sons also had fun driving the Model T Fords, like their parents did at probably around the same age.

The Dreamworld Pass was definitely worth it. With three days we got to do a huge amount of the stuff we wanted, and see most of the attractions.

09/07/2016 – Caloundra fishing

Everyone slept like logs after the full week of theme parks and staying at the kids resort.

We had breakfast at mcDonalds as per Myles’s request. It was lovely to have an authentic bacon muffin. After breakfast the boys played in the playground. Well they did, until Myles noticed someone had urinated on the slide.

In the afternoon we went fishing with my brother in the Maroochy River. It took a short while to land our first fish. Naturally Myles caught it. He went on to catch 9 fish altogether. They were mostly bream, only a few legal size.

The stand-out for me was Owen. He was a complete natural. No one had to show him a thing. He just knew how to hold the rod, and wind in the line. And it didn’t take long before he was also trying to cast out the line himself.  It was well-deserved when he caught his first fish!

All in all it was a great day, and night. It’s lovely that we didn’t need to spend a lot of money on theme parks parks and hotel resorts. We can have fun doing such simple activities. I didn’t even need to fish. I enjoyed just watching the others.

13/07/2016 – Extremely white Tassie

We woke around 8am to an unfortunate day of weather, so we cancelled any plans to climb a mountain. Instead we had a great day playing in the snow.

 

16/07/2016 – Flying home to Dubai

Even without looking after three boys, it’s a very long flight from Australia.  Not as long as the couple next to me on the flight, they were coming from New Zealand.  And travelling onto London.  Altogether they’d be sitting on a plane for 36 hours.

We all boarded late due to the plane arriving after schedule.  Then it took maybe more than 30 minutes for the engineers to repair some casing under the wing! At first they couldn’t open it.  Then it took some time.  Then they needed to complete the necessary paperwork.  The captain was nice enough to update us every 10 minutes sharing a lot of details – I’m not sure if we needed all the details.

Our planned flight was to depart at 2210 hours.  Before we boarded they revised the time to 2250.  With the refueling and engineering problems once we were aboard meant we didn’t leave til after midnight!

Despite this, due to good weather conditions we were still scheduled to arrive on-time!  That’s catching up two hours.  You can become curious, Why can’t they travel at that pace all the time.

This was my first QANTAS long haul between Australia and Dubai.  Not bad, though a little pokier in Economy.

The in-flight entertainment was unsurprisingly not up to the mark of Emirates.  With Emirates you get more choices than you need.  QANTAS, for me, have the choices you don’t necessarily want. Obviously the choices weren’t too bad, they lady across the aisle was often laughing out loud in hysterics.

The food was OK. I even enjoyed having a famous Bundaberg ginger beer.

Aussie fined for Dubai drunkiness – nope, not me

Reading Time: < 1 minuteIn local (Dubai) news, as well as back home, Australian football (soccer) player Craig Moore has proven to be a total dipstick here in Dubai by starting a “brawl” with a taxi driver over a 50 dirham fare. The story goes, he also assaulted the arresting officer.

Thankfully for him after getting bail, he was let off lightly with a 1000 dirham fine (just under AUD$300).

Not a good way to make Australia proud. Although some friends here from other nations think it’s unsurprising – as if it’s an Australian pastime.

It turns out Craig has quite a bit of property interests here in the Middle East – or perhaps he used to.