P. and I went to Vancouver last weekend for business reasons, and the trip went well aside from my not being able to drink the water or breathe the air. Oddly, I had been to the Lower Mainland half a dozen times before, including trivial visits involving little more than driving through it to get to the ferry to Victoria a couple of times, and I had never had any such problems. The air was especially, um, visible this time around, though, and it might have tipped the balance. My recovery time from long walks was out of whack, and my contact lenses also went on the blink at times. The conditions reversed themselves as soon as I got back to Vic and got a good night's sleep, however, so don't make plans to attend my funeral yet.

The business part of the trip went well. We did lunch with a married couple who constitute a film production company re: specific and general considerations we had, P. went to a conference at BCIT re: her day job, and I visited the HQ of the magazine Adbusters (and was unimpressed). Not too productive on the surface, but one has to sow a certain number of seeds, and P. felt that the BCIT conference was especially promising in that respect.

"First Person, Plural" is still in production. Episode 23 made it to initial broadcast last week, and Episode 24 is right on schedule to go out this week. We're still on every Thursday at noon (Pacific Time) on CFUV.

The SHOUTcast option is still available to me, but I'm going to save it for "utility" purposes, i.e., on a need basis instead of just broadcasting continuously. I'm not sure yet what uses I will put it to, but what I'm not going to do is pursue the "music-and-ads" format that seems to be mandatory for commercial success even among Internet radio stations. I expect I'll be firing it up on a case basis: it's there if I need it.

I have transferred webcasting activities to SHOUTcast, an open source webcasting solution. Listen to my new station, which is usually on the air in the afternoon and evening hours (Pacific Time). For now, tune in and you'll hear old Coffee Shop episodes along with live voice breaks and other material. I'm not sure where to go with it in the future, but I'm having fun just setting it up and working out the kinks. I may even do a station page and provide related links if I get motivated.

Episode #30 of "Coffee Shop" got recorded and uploaded on August 7. Still no decision on the "modified format." The good news is that "First Person, Plural" is now accessible from the show's web page. To wit, there is a "featured rerun" saved in the form of various MP3 files that visitors to the page may download and listen to using any player they have that supports MP3 format. Perfect for those of you who can't commit to the regular broadcast Thursday at noon Pacific time. Perhaps a similar repackaging would be suitable for "Coffee Shop" now that Live365 has lost its appeal.

CCC is branching out into video. Our first project is to be entitled "None Of Your Business!" and seeks to be business media criticism with a twist. The featured on-air personality will be yours truly, putting my MBA from Goizueta Business School at Emory University to good use. More about that as the technical considerations get sorted out.

What a difference a month makes. My rec league team won the league championship. OTOH, Live365 is using the CARP/Library of Congress rulings as an excuse to put the screws to the microbroadcasters on their server. Already they are restricting access to our show to "Preferred Listeners" of their service, and they plan to delete our account unless we agree to pay a "royalty administration fee." Not being pleased with the idea of paying royalties on our own intellectual property, Pattie and I are going to record only one more episode, the 30th, of "Coffee Shop." After uploading that one (each of the previous 29 episodes has already been uploaded at some point), the show will be out of production. Live365 lowers the boom in mid-September: our Internet station will be off the air at that point. So if you want to hear more "Coffee Shop" episodes than you have heard to date, you will need to purchase "Preferred Listener" status from L365, or you can just hang around the CCC site and wait for the series to reemerge in a modified format, hint hint.

Our terrestrial radio show, "First Person, Plural," is ticking along nicely. We have thirteen episodes sewn up and are airing our first rerun this Thursday. We will be rebroadcasting Episode Five. Tune in if you can.

My brother-in-law Deeve (don't ask) bought Pattie a webcam for her birthday. We have been using it to explore the world of digital video. More about that as we become more experienced in the field, but early returns indicate that an Internet-based TV show or similar project may well be the next step for Cultural Construction Company.

Coffee Shop, our Internet radio station, is one year old today! I'm not sure what we're going to do with it in the second year. We've been thinking about adding other programming, and we've also been thinking about broadcasting LIVE at least part of the time, which Live365 makes it possible to do.