barklife: Recent Episodes
jahnna and josh
two grown adults who happen to be married to each other wax silly about tangentially related and/or completely disparate things and stuff. we were going to call the podcast "just two people," but jean and lionel had that title pinned down already. dramatis personae: jahnna and josh, the aforementioned humans; charlie, wren, and otis (they are dogs).
hey, we're back! some ... stuff happened in 2022 and we took an unplanned break. we've got a fair number of updates in this episode, and because of the gap since our last episode we're calling this the start of season 2.
some brief show notes and credits:
- nümetal sample credit to The Aquabats! "I Fell Asleep on My Arm"
- josh made a reference to Operation Ivy. the song is "Freeze Up"
- intro and outro themes are "Bark-a-Tron 5000" by Bad Ronald
we’re back! we accidentally took a hiatus, but we are finally back behind the mic.
if you were following the adventurecast experiment, the audio on the second half (adventurecast: the return journey) was absolutely awful. so here’s the gist of what happened: we enjoyed our day out in cave city, ky, and we both highly recommend visiting dinosaur world if you’re in the area. the domes and dripstones tour of mammoth cave was very interesting (largely because our tour guide was very experienced and descended from the enslaved men who were the original explorers and tour guides in the cave). the website does say that the tour is not for the claustrophobic, but we would add that claustrophobia takes on new meaning on that tour. the entrance for that particular tour is through the more recent entrance to the cave which is, get this, at the bottom of a sinkhole. the pathway down into and through the cave is super narrow in places, and, as people living in larger bodies, we did struggle a bit. we’re talking rubbing against wet rock trying to squeeze through spaces (jahnna) and bonking heads on low rock (josh). that being said, there are some really impressive stalactites in there.
in this episode, we have our first brush with an actual episode format. we settled (at least for now) on four segments: updates, mental health, what we’re reading, and (if we have time) what’s on our minds. lots of updates and mental health chat this episode, so we didn’t get to the fourth segment this time. josh instructs me to apologize for how quickly he talks during the book segment. he says he was just really excited about books. (duh. who doesn’t get excited about books?!)
on the topic of books, here’s a link to jahnna’s readerly page: calamityjahnna on readerly and here’s a link to josh’s readerly page: skaficianado on readerly. that’s the fastest way to see what we’re currently reading and what we have read recently. we’re trying to figure out how to swap out the goodreads widgets on the website for readerly info so stay tuned on that. why readerly? their recommendation engine is delightful (it measures the reading overlap you have with other users to determine the likelihood that their recommendation will be helpful to you), it’s not run by a billionaire, and it has a great interface and some really cool features like a map of where all the books you’ve read have been set and challenges to read more diverse groups of authors and subject areas. readerly only became available to the general public without a code recently, so it’s still growing, but we encourage you to give it a try!
also in this episode, we talk about whether you can train yourself to be a morning person, and here are a couple of articles for you about that: can a night owl become an early bird? (nytimes) and how can i become a morning person? (headspace)
if you’d like the tl;dr on the updates so you can skip ahead, the boys are all great (including otis), and the house is still a work in progress. it probably will be a work in progress forever and ever amen. we’ve decided to try to hire a house cleaner, but we’re starting to run out of time to get that settled before school starts again. we have, since the episode was recorded, made a lot of progress with cleaning out the clothes closet and some other things like that, so we’re getting there. it just takes time and it’s okay to get help.
we hope you’re all doing well, and we’ll be back in a week or two (we hope) with episode 12.
here is part 2 of epic harvey-groft day trip 2022. hopefully audio quality is a bit better than part 1.
some background: way back in december i (jahnna) won a contest at school by knitting my own ugly holiday sweater, and the prize was a day off from school. it’s not been a good year for being able to get a sub and take a day off from school, nor was there anywhere to go until recently. with jefferson county finally making it to the green for covid levels, we settled on taking a day out in barren county, ky.
why barren county? because i went on a field trip to mammoth cave when i was in fifth grade (thanks again, dad, for chaperoning), and it was really interesting, and josh had never been but also because DINOSAUR WORLD is in barren county. if you’ve ever driven on the stretch of i-65 down around cave city and bowling green, ky, you have seen photosaurus out by the highway. we have been driving this stretch of highway to visit my dad since we moved to chicago, and after 10 years, it was time to take the plunge.
what does all of this have to do with the podcast? we have some of our most wide-ranging conversations in the car, and we recorded this one for you. we’ll release it as four special edition adventure episodes in the coming weeks.
the first 2 episodes were from the drive to mammoth cave. we talk about (among other things):
- why train travel is great and there should be a train between louisville and nashville
- our trip to montreal in 2019 and how clean their public transit was
- wren’s recent surgery and why the surgi-snuggli is great
- herb alpert & the tijuana brass
- that our house is a mess, we may need to check in with our mental health professionals about it, and we definitely need the skilled labor of a housekeeper
- the value in faking it until you make it, saying i’m sorry, and admitting you don’t know things (and also the downside to faking it well)
- how i’m taxing all of my fifth graders for paper, but they’re actually learning something about american history as well as the value of service to their community in time rather than in treasure
- how the pandemic killed the development of empathy which was already on its last legs for the age group i teach because of the anonymity of the internet
some links:
- mammoth cave national park
- dinosaur world kentucky
- surgi snuggly wonder suit post surgical healing dog suit
- the golden ratio on twitter and instagram
- herb alpert and the tijuana brass on discogs
- dr. michelle borba’s great book unselfie
- full time moms actually work 2.5 fulltime jobs
josh mentions mammothcaveblueberries.com which, unfortunately, is no longer a valid url, but you can find wild blueberries and blackberries in barren county, and blueberries will grow in kentucky (see this article from the UK extension office on growing highbush blueberries)
stay tuned for adventure episodes 3 & 4 where you can find out how our tour of mammoth cave went and what we thought about dinosaur world as well as listen to us eat crunchy things from sonic.
we did an experiment this week with the recording—and it was largely successful-ish!
some background: way back in december i (jahnna) won a contest at school by knitting my own ugly holiday sweater, and the prize was a day off from school. it’s not been a good year for being able to get a sub and take a day off from school, nor was there anywhere to go until recently. with jefferson county finally making it to the green for covid levels, the weather finally accepting that it’s probably going to stay spring, and happening to have lunch with one of our regular subs one day and asking her availability for april, we settled on taking a day out in barren county, ky.
why barren county? because i went on a field trip to mammoth cave when i was in fifth grade (thanks again, dad, for chaperoning), and it was really interesting, and josh had never been but also because DINOSAUR WORLD is in barren county. if you’ve ever driven on the stretch of i-65 down around cave city and bowling green, ky, you have seen photosaurus out by the highway. we have been driving this stretch of highway to visit my dad since we moved to chicago, and after 10 years, it was time to take the plunge.
what does all of this have to do with the podcast? we have some of our most wide-ranging conversations in the car, and we recorded this one for you. we’ll release it as four special edition adventure episodes in the coming weeks.
the first 2 episodes were from the drive to mammoth cave. we talk about (among other things):
- why train travel is great and there should be a train between louisville and nashville
- our trip to montreal in 2019 and how clean their public transit was
- wren’s recent surgery and why the surgi-snuggli is great
- herb alpert & the tijuana brass
- that our house is a mess, we may need to check in with our mental health professionals about it, and we definitely need the skilled labor of a housekeeper
- the value in faking it until you make it, saying i’m sorry, and admitting you don’t know things (and also the downside to faking it well)
- how i’m taxing all of my fifth graders for paper, but they’re actually learning something about american history as well as the value of service to their community in time rather than in treasure
- how the pandemic killed the development of empathy which was already on its last legs for the age group i teach because of the anonymity of the internet
some links:
- mammoth cave national park
- dinosaur world kentucky
- surgi snuggly wonder suit post surgical healing dog suit
- the golden ratio on twitter and instagram
- herb alpert and the tijuana brass on discogs
- dr. michelle borba’s great book unselfie
- full time moms actually work 2.5 fulltime jobs
josh mentions mammothcaveblueberries.com which, unfortunately, is no longer a valid url, but you can find wild blueberries and blackberries in barren county, and blueberries will grow in kentucky (see this article from the UK extension office on growing highbush blueberries)
stay tuned for adventure episodes 3 & 4 where you can find out how our tour of mammoth cave went and what we thought about dinosaur world as well as listen to us eat crunchy things from sonic.
greetings from louisville where we are either experiencing a redbud winter (a winter that interrupts spring), or we are seeing a tail end episode of spring of deception (a spring that interrupts winter).
this week’s episode was a bit of a rush job—it was always a bit destined to be because we were waiting for the battlebots tournament to end. however, life also intervened last weekend and this week in the form of a sick otis.
content warning: you should not listen if you become very upset or stressed out by discussions of dogs being sick (otis is fine now, but he wasn’t) or if you’re extremely bored by discussions of battlebots. with the battlebots, there is a mention of who won this season’s tournament so, if you don’t want to know that yet, mute that part.
we discuss otis’s diagnosis of addison’s disease in the first half of the pod, but i made a mistake when we were talking about it. i said that he needed to have his aldactone hormone replaced because of the addison’s, but it is aldosterone. the first time i said aldactone, i was a lot more confident than i was the second time i said it (but i’d already said it once so went with it for consistency), so i looked it up before i wrote this to be sure. aldosterone.
i’ll post the photos of our battlebots brackets on the website this week. josh’s, as he mentions, is a complete mess. mine is, too, but marginally less so.
what we’re reading:
jahnna—much ado about mothing
josh—the bus on thursday
family read aloud—2001: a space odyssey
i also mentioned that i just read the book my students are reading in language arts, and that book is the girl who drank the moon. it’s a great story, and i really enjoyed it, but i think maybe some of the deeper metaphors have been a little lost on my 5th grade students, which is understandable. things i read as a middle schooler but understood much more accurately or deeply as an adult are numerous. that discussion could be a whole episode unto itself.
theme music is bark-a-tron 5000 by bad ronald, used available thanks to the creative commons non-commercial share alike license.
right. so i (jahnna) have taken over the show notes. at least for now.
so this week, josh told me that i oughtn’t envision a more just and equitable world because that’s a big ask, so i started smaller by envisioning a more just and equitable olympics. we discussed the inequities in some money for medals programs (particularly canada’s), and it turned out that josh didn’t know money for medals was a thing at all. maybe you didn’t either.
further reading on money for medals and disparity between olympics and paralympics can be found here→ forbes: these 12 countries will pay their olympians six-figure bonuses for winning gold medals
bloomberg equality: prizes for paralympic gold medalists reflect inequality for many
and here is an article about canada’s paralympians in particular.
we also discussed the recent settlement in the soccer where the women’s team was compensated for lost pay compared to the men. the settlement is contingent on the resolution of a new collective bargaining agreement to address some other disparities related to working conditions. you can read more below:
espn: uswmnt, us soccer federation settle equal pay lawsuit for $24 million
books mentioned this week:
much ado about mothing
atlas of extinct countries
magic: a history
how rory thorne destroyed the multiverse
how the multiverse got its revenge*
in our next episode, we’ll be discussing how the battlebots tournament is going so far and how far into the tournament we made it without having to rework our brackets. we’ll also give you an update on which of us is in the lead on points.
theme music is bark-a-tron 5000 by bad ronald, used available thanks to the creative commons non-commercial share alike license.
josh: i mistitled these books in the audio. i said metaverse, but multiverse is correct.
*also josh: carmichael’s website was down when i tried to link off, so you get the author’s bio page from the publisher instead.
once again, i (josh) intended to put better show notes in here. perhaps, someday, i will. guess you'll just have to listen if you want to know what we talked about. it definitely involved mongols somehow. kind of. and some general life updates from casa harvey-groft.
intro and outtro music is Bark-a-Tron 5000 by Bad Ronald, available at freemusicarchive.org. sound effects come from freesound.org.
ah, well... i don't really have time for show notes today. jahnna is reading Radium Girls and i'm reading Sartre. other show mentions include Tori Amos, Little Women, Ani DiFranco, Liz Phair, Alanis Morisette, and probably some other stuff. you can look it up if you need to, you're a smart kid.
as the title suggests, our protagonists discuss both dogs and books, and how we, as a culture, underestimate kids' reading capabilities and emotional capacities. also, Animal Crossing. beware spoilers for I'm Thinking of Ending Things.
links to other things, mostly books, that are mentioned in this episode:
- Carmichael's (our local bookstore)
- Brownsboro Animal Clinic (our vet)
- "snake ex machina"
- A Peculiar Peril by Jeff VanderMeer
- Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
- The Thief of Always by Clive Barker
- Songs of a Dead Dreamer & Grimscribe by Thomas Ligotti
- The Rise & Fall of D.O.D.O. by Nicole Galland & Neal Stephenson
- Pete the Cat
jahnna and josh are back to give you a year-end wrap-up. sort of. we sort of ramble, as always, as the words escaping our mouths struggle to keep up with our brains. in episode 5, we find some things that didn't suck about 2021, as well as desires for 2022 (but not goals, because we don't do new year's resolutions). and this episode has been optimized for podcast listening, in terms of loudness, according to Apple. sorry if the previous episodes have been too loud.
as ever, our theme music is Bark-a-Tron 5000 by Bad Ronald.
some media referenced in this episode:
- Subnautica
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons
in episode 4 our protagonists talk smack on a rather obscure text called The Return of the King, and also The Hobbit. and except for josh struggling to form cohesive sentences, you'll also hear about:
- The Heroine with 1001 Faces
- puppets discussing the monomyth
- The Norse myth that inspired "The Lord of the Rings"
- O Brother, Where Art Thou?
- The Hero with a Thousand Faces
- The Last Cuentista
- The Thirteenth Tale
- Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
- Go Set a Watchman
- The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
epic background music credit goes to Scott Holmes. as ever, theme music is Bark-a-Tron 5000 by Bad Ronald.
hey! this episode is somewhat belated. it's the holiday season, and josh was out of town for a week in december, so things got weird. the editing may be a little slapdash, sorry and/or get over it. here's some of the things we reference this week:
- Funny, You Don't Look Autistic: A Comedian's Guide to Life on the Spectrum
By Michael McCreary - Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension
By Michio Kaku - The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture
By Glen Weldon - The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
as ever, our theme music is Bark-a-tron 500 by Bad Ronald. sound effects are public domain or free for non-commercial use from SoundBible.
good news, everyone! the audio quality of episode two is markedly better than in episode one! i'm (josh) learning great stuff about audio editing! no weird gaps! background noise removed!
bad news, everyone! we were both tired and unprepared when recording this episode, so ... it's maybe boring? some of last week's topics get a rehash. but hey, that's life, and we have a through-line now, i suppose.
topics this week included:
- The Saint
- The Murder on the Links
- 1493
- The Ashes of London
- Dune (again. and still a major motion picture. twice.)
- Wuthering Heights ("0 stars. every character in this book is terrible." -josh)
- Poldark
- Pride and Prejudice
- Birder Murder Mysteries (#5 referenced in the show)
- New Balance MSCFIV1
theme music is Bark-a-tron 5000 by Bad Ronald thanks to creative commons license CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US
jahnna and josh talk for a while. wren breathes loudly in the background and occasionally barks. if you don't know us -- heck, even if you do know us -- it may be difficult to follow. we jump around [cue music] topics a bit (a lot). spoiler alert for Avengers: Endgame. find other stuff we post at theharveygrofts.com.
links to some of the things we discuss:
- Books
- The Man Who Died Twice
- Poison for Breakfast
- 1491 & Before Columbus
- Dune (Now a major motion picture! Again!)
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians
- Mythos
- Sandman
- American Gods
- Good Omens
- Skeleton Man
- Pride & Prejudice
- I'm A Gnu
- Guar gum in fracking
- Shannon and the Clams (The Year of the Spider)
- Strange Planet
- WFPK