On the Road by cogdogblog
posted 10 Apr ’08, 9.00pm MDT PST on flickr
Petal to the metal for today’s trip from Phoenix to Ft Myers… Flaps! Flaps!
And a major "Whew" that I am not booked on American Airlines.
For perhaps uninteresting list of reasons, my blog juice has run low recently- there was about a 10 minute time span of recovery from the NMC Symposium on Mashups before going head first into the bowls of drupal trying to get our registration system read for the NMC Summer Conference, along with nurturing along 2 new MediaWikis for Horizon projects, and a fast track on a new WordPress powered project site.
And I am feeling kind of… well bored with twitter as well, oddly enough at a time when scads of people are following my lack of tweeting (like a burst of 100 in a week). Its part of regular cycles I find myself going through, and in the silence was some non blogged non tweeted yawns over diigo, I was off line and missed the flickr video news, geez I may just finally be losing my edge, people will realize it, and move on to D’Arcy’s doorstep.
There is a mouldering blog idea related around diigo, which was a tool I casually looked at before the big wave, and I am sure it us a tool that will intrigue my interest, but am honestly losing a bit of excitement every over every shiny new marble that comes rolling down the chute. It’s something about moving beyond tool lust to a love of the craft. But that is just embers on tge blog dust bin, nothing flaming there.
And I have also full knowingly put myself on a traveling treadmill. Today is the start of a cross country zig zag- I went from Phoenix today to Ft Myers and my nice Southwest flight overfilled with grumpy, whiny passengers from American Airlines. Somewhere I was recently reading of the hardships endured turn of the century by workers on these rigged sailing ships working the fishing grounds in Alaska — and just overhearing these pathetic “oh I am so put out” comments from people whose travel is delayed 4 hours ot who’s battery ran out on their Crackberry– just seems so — so— well, lame.
Then again, my travel was only budged 25 minutes, so I can afford to be snooty.
So here is the current tour… I am in Ft Myers this weekend to vist dear old Mom, and hope to dip my toes in the gulf at Sanibel. Monday, I head to Orlando where I am attending/presenting at the eLearning Guild Annual Gathering — one session on Second Life, another on 50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story, and the one that got me invited is a panelist on the Great ILS (Immersive Learning Simulations) Challenge- which Mark Oehlert is responsible for letting me in on.
On Thursday, I leave Mousetown and hop to LA where I am doing a Second Life discussion at USC on Friday and then part of a Second Life workshop with Susan Metros and Hilly Willis of USC for an accreditation conference in San Diego (go ask me what Second Life and accreditation have in common).
Then it is home for a week before another NMC meeting trip/ week in Austin at end of April.
On the road agaaaaaaaain…
Be careful out there, Alan. Thinking a lot about this notion of instructional technology (or what ever it is we do) as a craft given your amazing fishing post and just the way you frame your understanding of this space as a communal, not a technical, relationship. It makes more and more sense to me everyday, and I have to re-visit some of my own fanboyism. But anyway, all this is just to say enjoy your travels, see you at the end of the internets.
Please don’t burn yourself out and make sure you have some time for yourself (outside of work) because I like to read what you write about! I am on a 2 month tour of the southwest (pleasure not work) before I return home to teach a grad course. I hope I will find interesting things to relate to teaching for my course.
… go ask me what Second Life and accreditation have in common …
Virtual accreditation? 2nd Life site visits?
This is quite a concept, really – worth looking into ;^)
Love the imagery of the “every shiny new marble that comes rolling down the chute” and the fact that we need to have a “love of craft” and get beyond individual or specific tools in a “flavour of the month” approach.
Also liked your thoughts on lifecycles, having experienced “the curve” in a number of modalities. Also know from experience how difficult it is to keep up while on the road.
Take care of yourself and safe travels. As I keep saying, you *really* do need to get some “World Tour 2008” t-shirts made.