A Year in MINIons- MINIon #2005

I would have taken #2005 for my own since that was year of my first MINI, but others deserved that honor.  I ordered and adopted Penfold (wasn’t allowed to take delivery on Sue’s birthday) and then headed to NECC (National Educational Computer Conference- now the ISTE Conference) in San Diego where I was introduced to a couple other things that over the years have eaten away at my time- geocaching and podcasting.  Patience – it will all come together when I’m done.

While at NECC I sat in on a session about using GPS units to find things people had hidden (geocaching) they even had set up some dummy caches around the conventions center and loaned out GPS units for people to use.  I tried it out and when I saw the presenter in passing I called out to him- that he had ruined my convention- I was supposed to sit in a dark room watching powerpoints, and instead I was running around have a great time.  I told Sue about it and the rest in history… Without geocaching, there would be no Cecil.

The presenter had a podcast called Podcacher.  I hadn’t heard of podcasts so I started searching out what topics and stumbled upon White Roof Radio– the MINI Cooper Podcast.  I also tried Decoder Ring Theatre, and a few others, but those are the three that have stuck with me since.

So there are two MINIons on 2005, the original hosts of White Roof Radio.  I met them in person a year later in St. Louis, and just like the hosts of Podcacher, we are now close friends.  When I saw that the anniversary of White Roof Radio’s first broadcast was over MTTS I knew they needed a MINIon badge for the trip.