Power Mac G5 Quad, but first, a goodbye to Glenn Mitchell

I have a lot to report on the Apple front. I spent last Wednesday and Thursday with Apple in its New York executive briefing center looking at Power Mac G5 Quad, with demos of amazing medical and bioscience visualization software of a kind the Mac was previously unable to tackle, and the hard to categorize Aperture software for professional digital photographers and those dead serious amateurs who'd rather enjoy photography than get paid for it.

But first, I have a personal item to share, and although it's off-topic in this blog, this is the only place to share it. A man who greatly influenced my work, and particularly my attitude toward readers, died unexpectedly at his home this past weekend. He was 55.

Glenn Mitchell was the host of the daily, two hour Glenn Mitchell Show on Dallas/Fort Worth NPR affiliate KERA. Glenn was a wordly yet accessible genius who saw himself as a conduit between his listeners, whom he called "the smartest audience in radio," and his guests, which ranged from historians and scientists to linguists, actors, musicians and comics. The man was as much at home in the studio with former presidents as he was doing his weekly trivia call-in show and broadcasting live from the State Fair of Texas. No matter what your tastes, you never switched channels on Glenn.

One of Glenn's last guests, 60 Minutes' Mike Wallace, paused during his interview to tell Glenn that he's "a man who has obviously done his homework." That's high praise from Wallace, and reflects the surprise that notable guests often felt when they found such outstanding talent in a secondary market of a fly-over state.

Despite many requests from listeners, to my knowledge, KERA never set up a digital archive of The Glenn Mitchell Show. To me, his was the most podcast-worthy show on the air. I hope that at least a few of his past shows surface so that others can discover why his listeners were so devoted and why he'll be so deeply missed here. A two-hour memorial show aired on the Monday following Glenn's death during his normal noon to 2:00 time slot, and the memorial show is available for download via the link above.

The Glenn Mitchell Show was scheduled for nationwide syndication on XM Satellite Radio early next year.