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My First Carcast: Driving Home from Vancouver After the Doc Train Conference

by Tom Johnson on Apr 30, 2007
categories: podcasts

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While driving home from the Documentation and Training Conference in Vancouver, B.C., I recorded my first carcast.

Driving Home

It was a really interesting experience. I hadn't planned to do a carcast, and then on the way home I was a little bored and thought hey, why not try a carcast? I first heard about carcasting from a carcast Tee Morris did (see episode 3: Podcasting on the Go). Carcasting is actually a lot of fun.

And doing it post-conference is perfect, because I had a lot of ideas and thoughts swimming around in my head. The carcast helped me clarify a few things in my mind while providing an entertaining driving activity.

Of course sound quality in a car is not ideal. And I was totally holding the mic too close to my mouth. So it was a learning experience.

On the way home I drove through a little town called Burlington, which is where I grew up. Of course I drove past my old houses, school, and favorite places. That was part of the reason I flew into Seattle rather than straight to Vancouver. I included my reminiscing in the carcast, mixed with my thoughts on the conference.

The scenery in this image is how everything looked, but I didn't have a camera so this is a pic from Flickr. I also added some music from Harry Miller's Ceol Miner's band at the beginning and end. I visited with Harry while I was in Seattle.

This carcast isn't edited, and the audio quality isn't ideal. Sorry about that. I was just using my little iRiver MP3 player with its built-in mic. If you're ever on a long drive, you might think about trying carcasting. It's actually a lot of fun if you're driving alone.

About Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson

I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my API documentation course if you're looking for more info about documenting APIs. Or see my posts on AI and AI course section for more on the latest in AI and tech comm.

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