I’m ankle deep and sinking into the transcription of an hour-long recording of a phone call wherein the person I was interviewing yesterday was on a cell phone first in his car and then in what sounded like a Starbucks. Translation? Transcribing audio tape is hell enough without a word or several in practically every other sentence getting garbled or dropped or zapped or drowned out by the freaking traffic and/or espresso machinge in the background. In other words this is gonna take a helluva long time of pushing play then rewind then listen then rewind then listen and type then play and type then stop and type and rewind and play and stop and rewind and play and stop and type and rewind and play and type and… get the idea?
Case in point: I spent practically 30 minutes deciphering and logging the first maybe 15-20 minutes of conversation and I finally pushed away from the desk and got the hell out for a walk with Shadow and along came the following eye-catching little scene of a child’s bike at the end/edge of a stretch of cracked concrete driveway catching my eye somewhere near the top of the famed Music Box Steps (made famous by the Laurel & Hardy shorty from back in the day). On top of that I worked up a wonderful hypoglycemic attack on the way back that left me stumbling home to binge on mangos and peanut butter like I’ve never binged before.
Anyway… the above slightly surreal interlude has been brought to you by the vastly fleeing remains of my sanity as I eye the tape recorder with what can only be described as disdain and get back to the maddening task at hand.
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