Programming notes

There honestly hasn’t been a lot to alert you to lately and I’ve been so busy with some work and outside-of-work things lately that there’s not even be time to post anything fun and goofy.

What’s new:

• I haven’t done NPR in a few weeks and honestly have no idea when I’ll be on again. It’s been very quiet. People have been on vacation, my producer was assigned to a major blog project and I just haven’t heard much. I’ve been enjoying the summer time off and am still posting an occasional blog entry on All Tech, but there’s been no parting of ways or anything like that (that I know of).
• Ditto with CNN. They originally asked me to write just two pieces and that was that. I’m still waiting on my first check to clear through their large corporate structure and arrive before I ask if they’ve got any more assignments.
• The famous tech podcast Glark and I did that was never famous, Age of Lasers, has transformed into a Tumblr blog at AgeOfLasers.com. It’s much more random and requires a lot less coordinating to post on. So far, so fun.
• The contract Pablo and I have for Trailers Without Pity hits the two-year mark in October and we’re in the process of deciding whether we want to continue. We’ve been told there’s no money for raises, so it’s kind of up to us whether we want to keep doing what we’re doing at the current rate, propose a different project that would be simpler to produce, or just stop.  They’re still fun videos to do and it’s very nice to get paid to do fun work, but it’s very time-consuming and we’ve been doing it with very few breaks for two straight years. I’m inclined to say we had fun, said what we wanted to say, and are ready to move on, but that decision is not set in stone yet.
• Where I’ve been spending a ton of energy lately is at work where I’ve been wrapping up a story scheduled to run on the front page (fingers crossed) Sunday. It was a very tough story to put together — it’s a profile and when it comes to telling one person’s life, especially a person you’ve been wanting to tell people abou for a long time — it’s a lot of pressure. I’ll be very glad when it’s completely finished.
• Lastly, my mom was in the hospital recently for surgery and just got out today. It wasn’t nearly as bad as when she was in the hospital a few years ago and everything seemed to be going wrong, but it was still scary and draining (much more for her than for us).  We’re very glad this whole experience is over.

And that’s what’s going on.  Lilly and Carolina are doing great. I think Lilly has just discovered that if she plays with Carolina, Carolina will respond and play back and it’s a wonderful thing to watch. Lilly has a birthday coming up. The summer already feels like it’s almost over.  I’m trying to enjoy it before it’s gone with trips to Schlitterbahn, walks in the evenings and trying not to take on too many projects, at least for now.