What To Do When You're Stuck Inside

     I arrived home in Connecticut after snowbirding for six weeks in Florida and South Carolina, only to find that the worst of winter is not over, and spring is not around the corner. It snowed for 24 hours, leaving us with close to a foot of wintry mix on the ground. The five-day forecast predicts highs in the 30s, and lows dipping into the teens.

The view out my window

     It will be a week from now, the first official day of spring, before the temperature reaches up into the 40s. Well, at least I now live in a condo, where I do not have to be the one shoveling snow!

     In the meantime, I'm stuck inside. So what should I do? I'm reading a book, Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo. But that gets tiresome after a while. So I decided to take a couple of online courses. Maybe you already know about these . . . or maybe you know of others?

     Anyway, last year my daughter recommended to me a Dan Carlin podcast called Blueprint for Armageddon, a series of six podcasts covering World War I. Carlin is a former news reporter and radio host who has a wide-ranging interest in history and has used his easy manner and good presentation skills to produce a whole library podcasts called Hardcore History. Some are stand-alone, one-to-two hour lectures that approach a subject from an unusual point of view. In one he discusses whether the toughness of a people plays a role in history. In another he approaches the discoveries of Magellan as Globalization 1.0.

     I also listened to a series, Wrath of the Khans, on Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire. And now, this snowy day, I decided to start another series, King of Kings, which covers the rise of the Persian empire in the 7th century BCE and then proceeds to tell the story of Alexander the Great.

     Now Carlin is not an historian, and perhaps academics would be appalled at how he popularizes history. But if you are interested in history and want something to listen to that has a little more substance than the latest Youtube video, I can recommend turning to Hardcore History, whether you're at home in front of your computer, or at the gym pedaling out the miles on your stationary bike. Many of these audio files are free; and they can be accessed on your computer or on your phone as podcasts.

Yale University

     I also recommend another source, Open Yale Courses, that can be entertaining and even a little more academically rigorous. These are lectures recorded at Yale University over the past ten years that allow you to sit in on the various classes, watching and listening to top experts in their field, all for free. And if you're really interested, you can access class notes, do extra readings, solve problem sets and even take final exams.

     I sat through The Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1845 - 1877, a fascinating look at that period of American history hosted by Dr. David Blight. But the Yale courses go well beyond history to include subjects ranging from African-American Studies and Astronomy to Sociology and Spanish.

     One more suggestion is edx, a compendium of courses from a number of top universities around the world. You have to enroll in the website to take these classes, and I have not yet done that. But if this snow keeps up, I might be spending yet another day or two back in college.