2011 Road Dog Odyssey

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 ) 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 ) 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 [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Number of days on the road: 133 Miles Driven: 12,605 Most Recent 1000 mile marker: 12,000 miles, south of Atlanta, GA on October 30 Number of States/Provinces driven in: 24 Number of US/Canadian Border Crossings: 4 Money spent on gas: $3437 Cheapest gas price: $3.08/gallon (Fountain Inn, SC). Highest gas price: $5.64/gallon (CA$1.39/liter) (Wawa, ON). Photos posted: 2639 (that is an average of 19.8 per day) Most scenic foliage drive: Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina. Second was highway 58 in southwest Virginia Best alternative to Interstate- US 19, the Georgia-Florida Parkway. cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Number of books read: 12 (Most recent: Things the Grandchildren Should Know) Number of iPhones dropped into canyons: 1 Amount if love I have for me Android Phone: 0.0cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Number [...]

The ds106 assignment for what comes below is “Return to the Scene of the Crime”: Take a photo from the past that you took in a particular location. Return to that stop, and take another picture, “framing” the original within the current view. The whole premise is to find an old photo, return to the location, and create a new one where you are holding the photo and lining it up with the scene. It is a nifty mixing of analog in the digital space. I’d done some toying with this same technique after discovering the flickr Look into the Past grpup, which does overlays of historic photos over current scenes- I had done a few around my home town of Strawberry and neighboring Pine, AZ. First of all, a wide angle lens is essential. It need not be a DSLR, but you need a wide angle to fit the [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog My visit here in Camilla Georgia was exciting enoiugh with yesterday’s tour of the alligator farm, but today topped that easily. Vicki Davis invited me to where much of her magic happens, at Westwood High School. The first hour was spent with the entire school (elementary through high school) taking in a performance of “The Little Mermaid” that the theater group is going to be doing in a state competition. It was energetic and had everyone engrossed (well I felt that way). But the highlight for me was getting a chance to do a demo of the StoryBox for 2 different classes of Vicki, in her computer classroom. I tried this one differently, by only telling them the basics of what it was, not doing a demo. The point was to get them to join the network and explore. And [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog For about the 90th time on my road trip, I am overwhelmed at the gracious openness that people give me, even when I drop in almost last minute. Two days ago, while I was visiting Cindy Jennings in Spartanburg, South Carolina, I looked ahead to me route map, and noticed I would be going through south central Georgia, and likely not far from Camilla, where Vicki Davis calls home. I’ve “Known” Vicki for year through onlien channels, her early blogging as Cool Cat Teacher, and her Flat Classroom work, being part of the K-12 Horizon reports etc. Were it not for a chance meetup in Seattle early on this trip instigated by Steve Dembo, today would have been my first meeting with Vicki. Dspite her being crazy busy with school, family, writing books, running online projects, and likely 600 other [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Number of days on the road: 126 Miles Driven: 11,476 Most Recent 1000 mile marker: 11,000 miles, east of Nashville, TN on October 21 Number of States/Provinces driven in: 22 Number of US/Canadian Border Crossings: 4 Money spent on gas: $3048 Cheapest gas price: $3.08/gallon (Fountain Inn, SC). Highest gas price: $5.64/gallon (CA$1.39/liter) (Wawa, ON). Photos posted: 2485 (that is an average of 19.7 per day) cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Most scenic foliage drive: Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina. Second was highway 58 in southwest Virginnia Number of books read: 12 (Most recent: Things the Grandchildren Should Know) cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Number of iPhones dropped into canyons: 1 Number of nights in hotels/B&B: 13 Number of nights camping: 20 Best Campground and Experience (likely never to be [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Yes, it is so- this LG Thrive is my (temporary) replacement for my iPhone that lept over a cliff this week. It is a Droid. Frankly the fervent fetishing of this phone over that phone tires me (though I really want the one that starts with “i”). Here’s the reasoning… The nearest AT&T stores, even the ones within 30 miles, do not have the 4S in stock. I need a phone now. It seemed hardly worth it to contract in with an old model. I am more than 30 days out from being eligible for an upgrade. I could have gone to a Verizon store, but with future plans for international travel, a CDMA phone makes zero sense, even if the US network is better. Shane at the local AT&T outlet store was helpful .I asked about replacement smart phones, [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog There are too many reasons to list for me to say why I enjoy hanging out with Gardner Campbell one of them being the regular education he gives me in things like how vinyl records are mastered and the real meaning of revolutions. We did all of that the first night I stayed with him at his new home near Blacksburg, Virginia, and I wrm twisted him to have this conversation on ds106 radio. Here’s the full archive, below some highlights. Gardner Campbell on ds106 radio The first bit of new activity I am now aware is scanning what is in the “dead wax” of LPs. This is where codes are engraved that have meaning to audiophiles, and where the producers often add their own signature in terms of a name or initials. The disc Gardner was eager to play [...]