Captain's Blog - Signal Fire in the Fog

Stardate: 6.8.25 

Entry No. 001 Logged aboard The Chronicler 

by Noah McDonough

Aboard The Chronicler

I didn’t plan on lighting a signal fire. Not at first.

After 25 years at the same company, the layoff hit like a rogue wave. No warning. No soft landing. Just silence—followed by the noise of a world that kept moving without me.

The fog rolled in fast. I was disoriented, angry, free, afraid. All at once.

But here’s the thing about fog: it hides the path, but it also makes light visible from miles away. So I lit something. A spark. A voice. A mic. A show. 

That signal fire became Renegade Chronicles™—a space to document not just stories, but survival. Reinvention. The moment someone says, “Screw the safe route. I’m building my own damn road.”

Then came the Funky Friday™ radio show, because healing sometimes sounds like a bassline. Because funk reminds you that you still got a body, still got soul, still got rhythm.

Then came Your Daily AI News™, because if we’re gonna face the future, we better understand the machines helping us write and navigate it.

Then came Voice Over Noise™, because after all this? My voice isn’t just a tool. It’s a weapon. A compass. A calling.

Resource in the Fog

Resources within the Fog

What I didn’t expect—what the fog never shows you—is that sometimes, the resources you need are right under your feet.

Places like College of San Mateo and Cañada College aren’t just schools—they are lighthouses. Studios. Launchpads. They offer tools I’d never touched before: podcast rooms, video labs, open mics, radio stations with real power behind them.

It was like discovering a control panel for the next chapter of my life, hiding in plain sight.

Still, I had doubts. Could I really go back to college after all these years? Would I stick out? Be rusty? Too old to keep up?

The answer came slowly—assignment by assignment, project by project. Learning how to shoot and cut video in DGME 113, how to mix multitrack audio in DGME 118, how to build a broadcast from scratch in Radio Production.

And then the real shock: I wasn’t just keeping up. I was thriving. I aced the semester.

Not because it was easy—but because it mattered. Because I finally saw the connection between all these tools and the voice I’d spent a lifetime developing.

I wasn’t going back to school. I was going forward.

From Spark to Structure

Now, that signal fire has grown into something real. Renegade Chronicles™ isn’t just a podcast anymore—it’s a business. One with a mission, a heartbeat, and paperwork to prove it.

I’ve filed for trademarks. I’m applying for grants. I’m sketching blueprints to transform a “little house” in the backyard into a full-blown sound studio.

Even before that vision is built, the work is already giving back.

Every Funky Friday™ episode is a love letter to underappreciated artists. Every Your Daily AI News™ livestream makes emerging tech feel a little more human. Every Renegade Chronicles™ episode hands the mic to someone who never expected to be heard.

Truth is, when I first started these shows, they were for me. A way to stay engaged. To stay sane. To learn while struggling through change.

But somewhere along the way, I realized: They’re not just mine anymore.

They’re for the people dancing in their kitchens, offices, and gardens on a Friday morning. For students and creatives who hear themselves in these stories. For the folks who’ve never touched a mic—but now believe they could.

This whole thing started as survival. Now, it’s a signal.

Signal Fire

Captain’s Note

If you're reading this and wondering if it’s too late to start over: it’s not. If you're fumbling through fog of your own: light something. Doesn’t have to be perfect. Just has to burn hot.