CogBlogged from ‘August, 2011’

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Number of days on the road: 56 Miles Driven: 6462 Number of States/Provinces driven in: 11 Number of US/Canadian Border Crossings: 1 Money spent on gas: $1412.45 Photos posted: 1411 (that is an average of 25.2 per day) Number of nights in hotels/B&B: 9 Number of nights camping: 16 Most Number of consecutive nights camping: 5 (continuing into next week) Most Number of consecutive days without a shower: 5 (see previous) Weirdest Large Roadside Objects: 2 (Dog Bark Park, Cottonwood ID; Pysanka Egg, Vegreville AB) cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Friend/Relatives Homes Visited/Mooched Upon: 15 Number of parent’s homes lent to me: 1 (thanks Chris Harbeck) Number of games Shareski Family whupped me in: All of them Best Bike Ride: Canmore to Banff and back with D’Arcy Norman. Laundry Stops: 5 Boxes of Synders Pretzels [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Abby Lanes There are lots of things that are “on” the web (doh) but let me ask if you think of the things you do as being “of” the web. Bear with this perhaps semantic nitpicking or old fogey wishing for the good ole days of the simple times when it was the wild wild web west. I remember dreaming in HTML. The web is a fabric. You can just sit on the fabric or you can weave the fabric. If you think of the web as a living organism perhaps as trees you should want to do your part to nurture its growth, to preserve the root system, to keep the canopy vital. You don’t just go joy riding through in your ATV and toss cigarette butts and burger wrappers, you are part of the system. A few weeks back [...]

Just some quick catchup on stops in Saskatoon and last night here in Winnipeg where people not only opened their opens, filled my tunny, but wanted to get their first experience broadcasting on ds106 radio. cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Last Friday it was at Rick Schwier’s home in Saskatoon along with Rob Wall, one of my long web friends I got to meet for the first time that day. Rick had seen my tweet about getting great green chili in Colorado, and he aimed to top it with his home-made, and I must say, it was right up there, with bonus points for being made there. After geeking a bit with the StoryBox, I asked if they wanted to go on the radio- I was sure Rob did given his long run doing the Ed Tech Posse podcast. I am trying recall here, but [...]

cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by PetitPlat – Stephanie Kilgast (in dolly mood) Anyone who does stuff knows you do stuff by doing it. Eh? Last night while I was visiting Alec Couros he asked me why there was no image in the right side of the header of my blog. Hmmm, maybe it is your browser, Alec? Nope, Chrome and Safari and Firefox were giving me a grey box too. Maybe it was the caching on my blog- deleted it. Nope. Now it is looking grim, maybe it is time to shop for another theme template. 30 minutes looking at other themes, and then contemplating all of the custom things I have hung on this one. Then I looked at the Developer console in chrome and noticed an error flag on something related to “href$=.mp3″ That looked like something related to the WP-Audio plugin [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog The content inside the StoryBox is growing nicely- as of today I have: audio recordings: 55 documents: 7 drawings: 6 graphics: 4 music: 13 photos: 195 videos: 65 Much if it is mine- I am adding something almost every day, and where-ever possible doing audio recordings of people, both friends and strangers I meet. Just yesterday, I was at Broadway Roastry in Saskatonn, and a guy came up and asked about the Laughing Dog Brewery t-shirt I was wearing- he said he had just started working in local brewery (oops I forgot which one) and he let me record a brief conversation about the craft. I have recently also recorded a drunk guy in a bar telling us a joke, the lady working at the Torrington Gopher Hole Museum, ambient street noise in Saskatoon, a bit of an overhead conversation [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog You wont get for down the road if you only look at the rear view window, but it is a good idea to glance at it every now and then. It is almost 5 months since writing about the odyssey I am on and my leaving my job after 5 years at the NMC. There is some bittersweetness looking back to that time; I am having the time of life on the road, but I do miss people from the member organizations and the staff at the office in Austin. I’ve met while traveling and heard from a number of colleagues who were unaware I had left my job. I guess that means they dont read my blog (I am teasing you, Rick Schwier) or maybe my impact there was ? (c.f. tree in the woods falling). I am not [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Without some large foundation funding to pay my AT&T bill, here in Canada I am SOL for doing life ds106 radio broadcasts from the road. But on the drive yesterday to Regina from Saskatoon, I decided to record a short audio recording. Here are some road thoughts and reflections from the prairie Road to Regina Roadcast (8.5 Mb / 8:51)

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Number of days on the road: 48 Miles Driven: 50905 5095 Number of States/Provinces driven in: 9 Number of US/Canadian Border Crossings: 1 Money spent on gas: $1132.56 Photos posted: 1247 (that is an average of 26.0 per day) Number of nights in hotels/B&B: 9 Number of nights camping: 15 Most Number of consecutive nights camping: 5 (continuing into next week) Most Number of consecutive days without a shower: 5 (see previous) Weird Large Roadside Objects: 2 (Dog Bark Park, Cottonwood ID; Pysanka Egg, Vegreville AB) cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Friend/Relatives Homes Visited/Mooched Upon: 12 Best Bike Ride: Canmore to Banff and back with D’Arcy Norman, 23 miles. And beer. Laundry Stops: 4 Boxes of Synders Pretzels Consumed: 2 (most recent lasted from Freeland, WA to Vancouver, BC) Cans of Pringles Snorted in Car: [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog I’ve spent an enjoyable evening visiting George Siemens in Edmonton= happy accident as the original plan was to meet mid afternoon for coffee and I was going to truck on to North Battleford to meet Rob Wall, but I was late getting to town– I was mesmerized by the Gopher Hole Museum which caused me to be later for lunch with Raj Boora which caused me to call George who nicely offered to let me stay over (I will get to see Rob tomorrow). That was way too much explanation. George treated to a great Thai dinner down on funky Whyte Street in Edmonton, and the town later provided an epic street person sidewalk show as we enjoyed after dinner coffee. Among things discussed was ds106 and ds106 radio. George was game to do a live radio show, which we [...]

Damn, Canada is a big place. I’m 10 days in, and thought maybe I was 1/3 the way, but looking at this map (pink is where I have been, green where I think I am going) I am lucky if I have traversed a quarter of the Great Baconated North. Heck, Looking at where I am now in Calgary, I am not even east of where I started in Arizona! Beyond the weekly stats, the blogging here has been light, I know (and my Mom has told me so on the phone). The results are clear, no blogging and the peeps go away: One obvious insight so far is when I was at home how much time I got to not only blog, but also to read and stay in tune with my networks. With some days of being on the road 8, 10 hours, and then wanting to spend [...]