Patrick and JP discuss the value and limitations of digital recorders and other media. I believe this was recorded in his hotel room in L.A. during a brief layover on his way to visit other family members.

 

Here’s a transcription:

J:  … The audio files are so huge.

P:  Good idea. What are you recording onto?

J: It’s digital, it’s recording into internal memory and then I just plug the whole thing into a computer, download it, run some software to convert it from one audio format to another. That way I can post it on a website so you can listen to it while reading the transcription that my friend is doing.

J: It’s a great way – I know I’ve advocated it before but – when you want to tell your story, rather than … If you don’t feel like writing it out, just talk it out.

P:  If you’ve got somebody who will type it.

J: There are a lot of people who can do that. But even if not, at least you’ve got it recorded in some fashion and it can always be transcribed later.

P:  I did a lot of that before but the media has changed so that they can’t be played anymore.  Types of little disc, tape …  and stuff like that.

J: You just have to record those into one of these.

J: Actually I have a friend in Albuquerque who had been saving on her phone for two or three years some messages that her mom had left her before she passed away. [The messages said] “I’m really proud of you and I’ve never really been good at expressing it” but, anyway, she’s always saving these recordings. I was visiting and I just held this thing up to her phone. She played them back and we listened to this recording of it. She said “Yeah, that’s good, now I can erase the phone … or not .”

P:  I accidentally erased a good one from Stephanie. But you can’t keep everything.

J: That’s right. Where would you put it? [That’s a Stephen Wright joke.]

J: That’s a noisy door!

P: Hopefully it’s not someone falling from the roof …  onto the terrace!

Transcribed by Corine M.