Just Wondering

This episode was Cyndi's idea, and I'm so glad she looked into this because it's one of the coolest hobbies in the world. If you have ever liked fantasy anything, falconry is probably the closest thing a real human can get to being a sorcerer. Literally the coolest. Since this was Cyndi's idea, she took the reins in explaining all about falconry. What kind of training it requires, how involved it is, different types of birds, and even how one falconer has made a career out of his love for birds.

It's not easy to find good podcasts on Spotify or Apple Podcasts (or any other platforms for that matter). But I've figured out a way to find the best episodes and shows: Use Google! Take a listen to this shorter episode to find out why this is the best way to do it.

Fun fact, Dalton's name is spelled "Daulten" in my phone because he spelled it wrong for me when I met him (why'd I even ask?) and I haven't bothered to change it. Dalton is a Banner Tow pilot, which is the kind of airplane that flies ads over beaches. I'm not super familiar with them because I live in Utah, but it sounds like a ton of fun. I had way too many questions about being a pilot to research them all myself. So I brought Dalton on to tell me everything I wanted to know about what it was like to fly an airplane and be a pilot.

I've always thought it'd be cool to build a house by myself. Turns out there's a lot that goes into it. Today I chat with Chance Williams, a superintendant with Woodside homes. Chance walks me through the process of building a home and what you'd need to do to do it yourself.

The CPU is the brain of the computer. There's a lot that goes into what makes a CPU good, but essentially (as with most things in a computer), the bigger the number the better. There are two major CPU manufacturers right now, AMD and Intel. AMD is still kind of new, but you're starting to see them in a lot of new laptops. Usually you want to look for 3's, 5's, and 7's. If it says Celeron, Pentium, or Athelon—don't get it. RAM stands for Random Accessed Memory, and it (along with your CPU) is what allows you to run apps on your computer. Neither Windows nor MacOS is designed to run on less than 8gb of RAM, so if you see a budget PC with 4gb, you should stay away. For your storage, you want to look for something that has an SSD, not an HD or an HDD. The latter are mechanical drives that have to actually spin a disk to store something. It's not fast, and this is a HUGE factor in computer speed. I would shoot for at least a 256gb SSD. If you're getting a Chromebook, the specs are going to be lower because ChromeOS is a lighter-weight operating system.

In today's episode I sat down with Debbie Seeman, a franchise broker. Part of me has always wanted to open my own pizzeria, so I was wondering what that would be like with a franchise. Here's a link to the entrepreneur source: https://entrepreneurssource.com/

Roman is a good friend of mine who happens to like maps. He started his career in the GIS (Geographic Information Systems) industry, which sounds boring until you consider the fact that you find out just how many cameras are out there and what they can be used for. While Roman's favorite part of GIS is cartography, I pestered him with questions about whether or not the government is using GIS technology to spy on us. Here are the links we mentioned in the show: Florida Case Study: https://medium.com/geoai/swimming-pool-detection-and-classification-using-deep-learning-aaf4a3a5e652 Data.gov Instagram.com/maps

I realized one day that I don't know how vinegar is made. I know what you can make with vinegar, but I didn't know how to make it. And why are there so many different kinds of vinegar? I did as much research as I could on the subject and then pulled my lovely wife in to chat with me about it. It's actually more interesting than I thought it was going to be.

Aimee is a producer at KSL NewsRadio. She's been in radio for years now ever since she got a job interning at her college's radio station. Aimee's been hooked ever since and loves the fast paced environment that a radio station brings. She's done it all, from writer, to engineer, to host. We hope you enjoy today's episode as Aimee goes into the intricacies and details of running a radio show. Here's the link to the show Aimee produces: https://bit.ly/2KBXCNQ

R.J. Risueño is a cis male who identifies as gay. In May, he will graduate with a master's degree in Speech-Language Pathology and an emphasis in Multilingualism/Multiculturalism. Risueño's clinical interests lie in providing speech and language services for underserved individuals, particularly people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community. For his graduate capstone project, Risueño and a graduate student in social work will present a webinar for transgender adolescents and their parents. The workshop will focus on voice/communication and mental health strategies. Risueño volunteers with Arizona LDS LGBTQ+ (ALL), a local organization that provides support for LGBTQ+ individuals who have at some point been affiliated with the Mormon religion. Risueño's current projects center on bringing voice and communication to the forefront of health for trans and gender non-conforming individuals in the Phoenix metropolitan area. R.J.'s Blog: https://rjrisueno.com/

R.J. Risueño is a cis male who identifies as gay. In May, he will graduate with a master's degree in Speech-Language Pathology and an emphasis in Multilingualism/Multiculturalism. Risueño's clinical interests lie in providing speech and language services for underserved individuals, particularly people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community. For his graduate capstone project, Risueño and a graduate student in social work will present a webinar for transgender adolescents and their parents. The workshop will focus on voice/communication and mental health strategies. Risueño volunteers with Arizona LDS LGBTQ+ (ALL), a local organization that provides support for LGBTQ+ individuals who have at some point been affiliated with the Mormon religion. Risueño's current projects center on bringing voice and communication to the forefront of health for trans and gender non-conforming individuals in the Phoenix metropolitan area. R.J.'s Blog: https://rjrisueno.com/

Welcome to the intro episode for the Just Wondering Podcast with your host, me, Jantzen Russell. If we're being honest, not very many people listen to these intro episodes, lovingly referred to sometimes as episode zero, so here's the question: why have them at all? I'd like to shoot straight with you on this subject and tell you exactly why they exist, since it's obviously not for the purpose of creating good content. The intro episode, contrary to popular belief actually has nothing to do with introducing the podcast and its subject matter at all (which, by the way, for this podcast, is all about answering the childlike questions we ran out of time to answer before we grew up). Instead, the intro episode is about introducing the podcast to different listening platforms. You see, all of the major podcasting platforms (like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Stitcher, to name a few) need to get their podcasts from somewhere. Otherwise, podcasters would need to upload all of their episodes to each platform individually, in perpetuity. Well, that would be a hassle, so instead, podcasters upload their episodes to what are known as a distributors (I'm using Anchor.fm for this podcast, but I've also used a service called Podbean for another podcast). These distributors create RSS feeds for your podcast, which are essentially a lines of code that Spotify and the rest of them can use to retrieve episodes on a regular basis. Now, getting your podcast's RSS feed to be used by Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and the others can take time because it needs to go through an approval process—which can sometimes take up to two weeks! This is where our intro episode comes in. Before someone (or a company) launches a podcast, they'll launch an intro episode so they can obtain an RSS feed from their distributor. Once they have that RSS code, they'll distribute it to all of the podcast platforms to get approved. Then, once the RSS feed is approved, the podcaster can check all of the platforms to make sure they're live. If they are, they can then officially “launch” the podcast. If you were to launch your episodes without being distributed first, your reach for episodes would be very small. So you see, the intro episode to a podcast really has very little to do with actually creating an episode, and instead has everything to do with manipulating an algorithm to get a podcast off the ground. And that's why podcast intros exist. You know, in case you were just wondering.