CogBlogged from ‘November, 2011’

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by howvin I have gotten an impressive stream of support, donations with my request to help support Feed2JS, enough to keep the site up and running (which apparently has been stable). But I’ve not been comfortable depending on a future path of donation support, although y’all have demonstrated the potential here. It ought to be free. I had a few nibbles of interest of offers to support the costs (in exchange for some visible sponsorship on the main site), with one that looked very viable, but still up in the air. But a new one is on the table, and it would pay for the ongoing server costs in exchange for text links ads in the footer of the Feed2JS site. I felt a bit squeamish, but it seems pretty minimal; I would get to know the site listed since [...]

What started out as another set of family pictures for the Dear Photograph (or Return to the Scene of the Crime) ds106 assignment sprawls a bit more as I find connection points– let’s see by the end if they lead anywhere. Perhaps a path. Made of bricks. It has to do with bricks and paths and making the latter our of the former. I start with this photo of my Dad doing what he enjoyed, an outside task with his hands. Here he is laying some brick for a walkway outside the patio of the house in Florida (or how they say it here, outside the “lanai”). Look at that smile. And he is wearing an ASU hat I sent him (which I found this week in the garage). cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Dear Photograph, I see you Dad, carefully making a brick walkway. [...]

cc licensed ( BY ND ) flickr photo shared by James Jordan My best plans are accidental. Dripping with serendipity. And this is happening again first week of December. It was with boundless excitement on visiting Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach I found myself on offer of a trip to Melbourne to do a keynote for her Powerful Learning Practice culminating event for their project there. That is one day I am down for, November 29… but while planning travel, it only made sense to take in more than Melbourne, so I opted for a 2 week stay. While I visited every capitol city in my 2007 whirlwind trip I hardly saw anything beyond airports and hotels (plus I got sick my first weekend on the ground). So I wanted to see some more out of the cities. So the plan first is a few days of road tripping with my colleague Jan [...]

cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by ailatan Okay, I admit right here it is cheesy cheap to grab attempt with an #occupy title, but that is where I am headed tomorrow, on my continued mission to become Canadian. This has been a long running effort, going back to 2003 or so when I first connected with Brian Lamb and D’Arcy Norman, how we coined ourselves the Three Amigos (could not locate that photo of us in Vancouver from 2004 thank’s D’Arcy@). In that time, much of my favorite collaborators have been North of the Border, and usually when I am presenting with them, I say something like “I represent the Southern Canadian Province of Arizona”. Thus when I started planning my 2011 Road Odyssey, a key part of it was crossing the country– via Canada, not quite making it all the way across, but covering [...]

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by saamiblog For this week’s change11 it is becoming much more clear with Dave’s posting of the presentation he did for Alec Corous’s class. The idea of the noble nomad, alone, surviving, self directed… becomes romanticized (maybe not standing in front of a tent with a reindeer dressed like an elf). I am hearing Dave and he is not urging us to be nomads but having nomadic tendencies or traits. It reminds me a bit of how when we do those Myers-briggs test, it is easy to say I am an Introvert (I was always high on the I). It helped greatly in the 1990s when our office had done this and the facilitator describing these as moving targets and just what our natural tendency is- so as someone who feels a more confortable energy state as an introvert. This [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Today was the day many people around here in Mom’s neighborhood were waiting for- a chance for them to show their love and sorrow and memories for Alyce at a memorial tribute at a place that became a hub for her, Temple Judea. A room full of people were there, each one with a dear story of how my Mom impacted them. There were at least 20 people from her neighborhood. In a time when people suggest we are more disconnected as neighborhoods, I offer Tall Pine Circle as an exception. For the week my sisters and I have been there has been a parade of neighbors coming by to share how special Mom was. And they did so again today. There were two ladies from the bank my Mom [...]

Giulia created a beautiful animated interpretation of Dave Cormier’s ideas on Rhizomatic Learning for this week’s change11 session. In her post, Giulia put out the challenge to remix her work, and I could not let that slip by, here is my Rhizomic Remix / Wondering Like most times, I started with about 1/8 of an idea, nothing planned on paper, but let the media I came across nudge me. The first was coming across references to a piece of audio equipment called The Rhizome: The Rhizome is an innovative groove machine combining samplers, sequencers, synthesizers, mixing desk, totally open and compatible with VSTs. The Rhizome has been already recognized by professional like a very promising groove machine that will make a difference. The Rhizome is a key milestone in 2010 that will improve the way the music is composed and played live. So I took a clip of their video [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Among the memorabilia curated by my Mom was something I wrote for the confirmation ceremony I did in (?) 10th grade as my last year of religious school. I was pretty much not tuned into the Hebrew School thing but stuck it out cause I thought it would please my folks (and maybe still feeling some of the expectation for the expenses of my Bar Mitzvah). Anyhow, I have no context for why these words came out of me- some of just not feeling like nor wanting to, fit in, and also wanting something bigger in terms of an adventure in life. Maybe it is a way I wanted to be (and snuck “beer” can into the printed program). It is in imaginary character, sort of. Well, for what its not worth: He was orphaned in his early years, All [...]

cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by Matt Biddulph I missed this live act, but apparently Jim Groom has been jetting across the US and broadcasting to ds106 radio. The FAA has no clue. Nigel (@easgill) posted a clip of this to SoundCloud and it was whispering to me– “REMIX REMIX REMIX”. So added to this is a bit of what I like as the back beat of radio, Wall of Voodoo’s Mexican Radio, a bit of James Bond ordering drinks after the BAVA ORDERS A COKE (edgy), and the OTR Radio Public Service announcement on Freedom. All of this mixed, edited, and tickled in Audacity. Jim Groom Aircasting on the ds106 radio by cogdog Let’s hope the plane lands safely despite this interference, and this does not happen ds106 Radio. Freedom. #4life.

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog I had noticed this when my sister and I cam down to Florida on September, but it did not dawn on me until this week that the item in that picture may have been one of the things my Mom read last before she passed away on August 27. As funny as it seems to the tech heads, both my parents printed out a lot of my email messages. It was not that they could not look at them online, it just seemed to mean more to them to have something to hold, touch, read. My dad had made an entire notebook from the things I wrote on my 6 months of travel in 2000. So its both warm and sad to think of my Mom re-reading the words I had written about my brother David and his chair, posted [...]