? of the Week

Once a week.  I can do this.

Hello and welcome to Tenor Eleven Miles Away-- the Sunday at 4 a.m. edition.  I just got my infant daughter back to sleep and now I ask myself (sorry about this), "Sleep, why dost thou leave me?"

At 4 a.m. a lot of thoughts go through your head.  Today's thought was, why not start a list of my favorite things?  I'll try to include blogs and new media, restaurants, locations, events or anything else that might be fun.  It will be a pretty wide ranging list, so hang on tight!

This week's "? of the Week" is:

The Planet Money Podcast.

Boy, I love this podcast.  I also love economics.  Each time I listen to the podcast, I learn something new about the world.  They have covered the global financial crisis, economics in Haiti and they are attempting to build a t-shirt from scratch.

Just when I thought the podcast couldn't get much better, I heard their podcast about the economic crisis in Scranton, Pennsylvania. I realized that I recognized the voice of Gordon Mann, the gentleman interviewed, who was doing the financial recovery plan and audit of the city.  It turns out he was the one who interviewed me for an office/programmer position when I was an apprentice in Binghamton, New York.

At the time, he was working for a local State Senator and he was my second interviewer for a very nice job working for a local children's reading initiative.  I remember him being vaguely reticent about hiring a semi-hippie opera singer, but to his credit, he looked past my quirks and hired me.

Incidentally, I'm still in touch my former boss, a dear friend.  She and the Senator's office were happily surprised to hear about Gordon.  As she said, "we're not really an NPR office, so thanks for the link."