Highmoon's Ponderings

Miami’s version of Autumn has arrived. Yesterday it was in the mid-90′s during the day, and overnight it dropped to high 60′s. Then it went up to the low 80′s during the day today, and now it’s supposed to drop to the low 60′s throughout the night again. By Friday, however, it’s all over with temperatures back in the 90′s until the next cold front sweeps through next week and we go through this again.

It’s not much, but for Miami, we’ll take it gladly!

* – Extra points for anyone who caught the Dream Theatre reference.

My wife and I (well, mostly her, I just helped a little then stayed out of the way) made etrog jelly today. After Sukkot was over, we collected 6 etrogs from different people at the shul, and along with two navel oranges, we made a batch of 13 jars of jelly. We did this last year for the first time, and it was a hit! We only made 6 jars then, and they went quite fast. This year, as you can see below, we ended up with a lot more. Now it remains to be seen if it all turns out as it should. Worst case scenario, we have etrog ice cream topping!

The first review for Targum Magazine #1 is in, and it’s good!

You can see it over at RPGnow.com: Staff Review – Targum Magazine, Issue 01 by Peter Ingham.

I WILL record a podcast this week, even if I have to lock myself somewhere to do it. This week has been full of unexpected events that completely threw off any plans that were made. But I will most certainly record this week. Hopefully.

I installed a plug-in that allows me to automatically crosspost anything from here to my LiveJournal site, http://highmoonmedia.livejournal.com. I really don’t use LJ except to leave comments on other people’s blogs, but if this works as intended, then it’s pretty cool. If I can find one to crosspost to Blogger then that would be awesome.

One of the projects I am planning for next year is to take solo my current podcast, The Gamer Traveler. So far it has been playing as a recurring segment of the Dragon’s Landing Inn Podcast, and I have actually been very happy with it there. Chuck and Lonnie of the DLI have been of great help in that project and have been very supporting. My decision to take it solo has more to do with my desire to do new things with the cast without messing up with their format. So far I have been researching various topics related to podcasting just to make sure I go out of the gate with the best advantage possible, having learned from everyone else’s mistakes, and I hope the next 3 months will give me the time to work out as many of the kinks as possible.

This weekend, however, as we celebrated Shemini Atzeret & Simchat Torah, a thought came into my head and it hasn’t gone away; quite the contrary, it has embedded itself and is starting to grow into a full-fledged idea, an idea for yet another podcast. Yes, I know, here I am, not having launched one podcast and already planning a second one, but what can I do.

I don’t have a name for it yet, but the idea is this: I am a young, observant Jew (Orthodox, if we’re gonna use classifications) who very much lives in the modern world, and a convert to top it off (not to mention Hispanic as well). This gives me a particular point of view that is pretty unique and that I can use to talk about various topics and how they relate to Judaism today. In addition, and probably the biggest driving factor, I want to address and offer support to any and all who are on the path to conversion to Judaism; I can’t offer help, because each story of conversion is unique, but certainly support. I’m thinking a monthly schedule would be good to start with for this one. I have been looking around at what’s out there in the podcasting world on Judaism, and I have seen nothing like it, meaning there’s a chance it could work.

I need to think some more about this, and run it by my wife (who will no doubt chide me about taking on yet another project), but I think it’s a good idea, and one that has merit for a particular, and very important, part of my life.