Podcasting gods hate me this week...

In a funk and feeling it all caving in on me... the mountainous list of things To Do that just keeps growing.... sigh.. I did finally get a podcast up tonight although it took a couple of days due to technical issues beyond my control. Two separate software clients had issues that prevented me from podcasting. Then, when I finally got things up and running, the usual issue of podcasting in the heart of my home and having to find the precise (quiet) moment is always an issue.

Yesterday, I was so upset because I really wanted to podcast; it's Free Agency and the Patriots have been totally active and had some BIG signings so there actually was news! I came home from work, and put all other things aside to make the show my first priority. Naturally, doing a podcast like mine, there's some research involved so I spent some time reading articles online and deciding what was most important.

Knowing that family would likely be in and out, I decided to record in Audacity because it offers easy editing and can be recorded in pieces. So, I finally got to record, got the whole spoken part done and went to listen and the cursor was stuck so it wouldn't play all of those beautiful looking waves. It had happened last week too and I needed to re-record. I had downloaded the newer version after that problem thinking that it would be ok. So... wasted time, and by then the house was so noisy I couldn't do a thing. I felt horrible too, because nothing else had gotten done because I had pushed it aside for the podcast. I jumped in Second Life for 20 minutes to hang with some podcasters, unplugged and got things ready for work before bed.

Today, I decided to record as soon as I got home and once again pushed everything else aside. Mistake #1 ... downloading the new itunes update the minute I walked in the door because I had to wait. (Don't forget, I'm running against the clock for limited quiet house time...) Got that all set then tried to fire up my usual recording software of choice, Castblaster. I had downloaded the newest Beta and lo and behold, couldn't open the program... grrrr. So, I re downloaded the prior version which did work. I was ready!!

I recorded for about 10 minutes then heard the infamous garage.... meaning that the family was home so I stopped. A couple of hours later, I tried to record again and although I said "append" it overwrote my prior recording so I had to start over. I was interrupted by kids coming in and hit "pause" but grrrr.. .it kept recording so I knew I would have to edit. Castblaster is a "live" recording experience and doesn't offer much in terms of easy editing. When I finally finished I tried to delete the selection that was messy but it wouldn't work.

So, I was forced to run the whole thing through Audacity (thankfully that worked) to chop out the crap but encoding takes forever. I tried to encode via itunes on the advice of a friend but it didn't offer an easy way to write shownotes. So, encoding through Audacity via Lame is what I needed to do, but then STILL run it through iTunes to add my photo and change the genre to Podcast since Audacity doesn't offer either of those...

Sigh... see where I'm going here? Hours and hours and hours for a 19 minute show! Then add on writing the shownotes, writing the rss feed, uploading to Libsyn, posting notes to Blog and myspace and updating the website. (sheesh, just realized I forgot Technorati tags but screw it now!) Crazy isn't it?!

However... I love it and don't want to give it up. I do wish for an easier recording solution though.. something that would allow me the "real" feel of Castblaster and the one stop show notes writing and fast encoding that it offers but would allow for easy editing if necessary. Let's face it, there are always far to many ummms and such in everyday speech but with CB I just leave it in because it's not an easy fix to edit out.

Although... right now.. I'd settle for anything that would work consistently.

Technorati Tagspodcast patriots patriotworld mrsb audacity castblaster libsyn To+Do+List funk