This is going to be another random, personal post… so I apologize in advance.. Needless to say, I’ve been rather quiet on the new media front lately. I’ll do some more new media stuff here soon, but life has really been crazy the last couple of weeks.

Life and emotional chaos

Becca and Ed at Arrowhead Stadium Becca has been studying for the CPA test for the last year. Her latest section of the exam tested last week, and unfortunately, it didn’t appear to have gone as well as she hoped. Apparently there was a great deal of items in the exam that were not in the review materials. So much for the $3000 we spent on them. In any case, Becca then followed up the exam with sinus surgery less than 12 hours after finishing her test.  The surgery went well, but she’s been pretty inactive since Thursday. She headed back to work today.

The school year has also passed, and my son is beginning his first summer vacation. I don’t think the concept has quite sunk in yet, but I know both kids are anxious to get some quality pool time in this summer. The weather here has been pretty hot over the last week, so I’m sure the local pools will heat up in a hurry. Becca can’t wait until she gets the go-ahead from the doctor to be in the pool again. The kids get their fish qualities from her.

As some of you know, I tend to take on the emotional burdens of those I care for. I’ve had no problems caring for Becca over the last week, in fact I welcome being able to serve her. But needless to say, the emotional drain from everything has gotten to me a bit as of late. I haven’t even looked into producing a new episode of Looking Out The Window , and it’s been several weeks since the last show went out. It was also discouraging when my latest interview fell through. Realizations that I won’t make it to either Podcamp Boston or the New Media Expo this year have me down as well. But, such if life.

KCWeather as a business?

There have been many interesting developments on the weather front as of late. Yes, it’s been an active severe weather season (although pretty calm in Kansas City), but there are other things going on that have peaked my interest.  Primarily, is that I’ve been contacted by a few different people about starting up some sort of weather consulting company or weather network. While planning is still in their infancy stages, we’ve thought about everything from offering personalized forecasts for people (kind of a virtual assistant for weather) to utilizing current reader and listener bases to form a network. One person I’ve been in contact with is a former coworker of mine. The opportunity to possibly work with them makes me smile. The only questions are: Is there a market for specific weather information, or is the market already too saturated to make it into a business? Would it replace current work? The list goes on, but has certainly been an interesting thought to say the least.

Still looking for a phone

Thanks to those of you that offered your thoughts on the phone upgrade I’m looking in to. The more I’ve looked, the better the Samsung Instinct looks. Unfortunatly, it requires that I leave my current family plan and sign up for one of Sprint ‘s everything plans (that costs more than my current family plan). I was hoping that I could simply add data to my current plan and I’d be golden. That doesn’t appear to be the case. I’m not sure I want to spend $70 for an individual plan AND X dollars for a plan for my wife. If I could simply add $30 to my family plan to cover my phone, I’d be okay with that. To add twice that to my monthly bill is a bit much for us. Thanks Sprint.

I’m still looking for a phone, and the new Google Android phones look nice as well. Who knows when those will launch.. and I’ve heard they’re going to be rather expensive. I really need something with a full browser, so that limits my choices significantly. Needless to say, it’s pretty discouraging, but something I could really use (especially if this weather thing ends up panning out).

For now, that will cover my brain dump. I’m off to search for a hug…