Hear ye, hear ye!

In another round of I'm-late-to-the-party-but-better-late-than-never, I have a few links to share tonight.  Good links.  Sometimes funny links.  Scratch your head or sigh in comradeship links. 

Here's the deal.  I find myself with some extra time on my ears that isn't fully taken with a form of media, and as I was typing that sentence, I realized just how many different outlets of communication I have on a daily basis in my life now.
1.  Sirius XM radio (at least for a couple of more months...thanks hubs, for the Christmas present 'cause I heart Michael Smerconish!)
2.  6 large TV screens on various channels in front of me while treadmilling (On another note where I talk about running yet again, I'd like to point out that I thought today was going to absolutely bite the biggest of the big ones cause it's been a few days since I've run.  And it didn't.  3 cheers to that.)
3.  2 different devices with a constant email update/news update/entertainment update, all day long
4.  a favorite TV show for about an hour in the afternoon and another hour at night if I'm lucky
5.  3 podcasts that I follow every week
6.  another couple of podcasts that I've dabbled with
7.  a new podcast that I tried this week
8.  MLB TV soon and very soon (like a breath of springshine, the new season is a'startin')

But let's gab about #7 for a bit.  I occasionally reach into the TED Talks vaults for a class source with a couple of the classes that I teach.  And they're always fantastic.  Always smartly delivered.  Always fascinating.  Who knew that TED Talks are available for podcasts and videocasts?  Indeedy, they are.  They're that nugget of insight, wisdom and learning for the sake of learning that's been missing from my life.  They're (generally) kid-safe (which means that I can have them on in public spaces while putzing in the kitchen), and they're delivered in snappy little 5-20 minute packages, which is perfect-o for those times when you have a few minutes but not long enough for an entire episode of whatever it is that you're involved with. 

Just while juicing a few lemons, prepping for pizza and unloading a dishwasher, I listened to a discussion on asteroids (she seems like someone that I want to drink coffee with) and some thoughts about why we should raise brave girls (YES, YES, oh my YES & color me convicted of not practicing my own bravery skills).  When I was then making the pi pizza pie (it's 3-14 & my young people are always down for a mid-week, kitschy celebration), I sighed deep sighs on the truth of women's voices (my sighs were shockingly British sounding, too).  While I folded towels tonight, I considered a different perception of indoctrination (and will promptly be integrating this into my lesson plans for next week - get read, ENGW-132!).  And, while throwing on some clothes post-shower/pre-school pick-up, I delighted in learning from obituaries (fascinating stuff & proof positive that I don't only listen to female TED Talks speakers). 

Good people.  Embrace a new possibility.  A new potential.  A new bit of knowing.  If nothing else, I find that listening to brilliant and motivated people make me cheer for humanity and strive to be more of everything in a good way, a possible way.  There's a whole bunch of hope in knowing that a whole bunch of others know a whole bunch of things that I don't and so that I don't have to. 

And if you have a bit more time in your world or want to delve into a longer conversation of happenstance and hard work combined, I encourage you to give How I Built This a go.  I've only listened to a couple so far, but they haven't failed to make me shake my head a bit and appreciate the Common Joe aspect of all the innovators and entrepreneurs among us.

With all of those listens I'm sending your way, here's a clip for you parents out there.  I envy her spunk when faced with a car trip with kids.  There's just about nothing I dread more.  I want to be at so many places, but the boy doesn't want to foot the bill for airplane tickets (begrudgingly, I'm in agreement with right now), which means that we make calculated risks using Mapquest to guide our X-hour parameters.  We're firmly in the pack-up-the-kids-and-a-puke-bucket-mode around here.  My child...she is what she is.  But I'd like to see where the adrenaline-from-another-round-of-carsickness Mommy-tude falls into the hourly breakdown.  HINT:  For us, it happens pretty fast.  (I had the girls 45 minutes away from home this past Saturday for a girl's day adventure.  We made it 15 minutes before we had windows down and the familiar look was on her face.)