Volunteering Again

I had a slightly spontaneous (but not entirely unexpected) meeting with Sensei this afternoon. He called around noonish asking for some help with the podcast he wanted to start — mainly, where to start. So, we met at the dojo (a five-minute drive for me), drove over to Starbucks (another five-minute drive or so), and talked about podcasting over coffee. (By the way? If you’re into corporate coffee, the Pumpkin Spice Latte is delish.)

After an hour of discussion, mainly about what podcasts are and how to create them and what we want to do with ours, I went home with his new H2 recorder, a CD of original music, a password or two, and some other vital info.

This is the result.

I spent two hours on the editing and tweaking of the files (which will get progressively easier as I (we) learn the appropriate level settings for the recorder), and I spent considerably longer than that setting up the domain name and the libsyn account.

Now, I know I don’t need anything else on my plate right now, especially since I’m a.) job-hunting and b.) revamping the drum corps website. Oh, yeah, and c.) planning to do NaNoWriMo in a week. But, really, I could streamline this to a one-hour operation after zen on Wednesday nights. Aaron suggested I barter for a discount on my aikido, but Sensei suggested that this could be what I contribute to the sangha (zen community). I don’t want to get sucked into more than I should, but I know that my talents are best used, rather than left to languish. Plus, like I said before, I like to feel… not so much important, but needed, I guess.

We’ll see how this pans out. I want to be helpful, but I know that sometimes that translates to being used, depending on who I’m “helping.” I may have to cut some other projects free soon to make room for this one.