creative commons licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by kennymatic
Here it is, what seems like what I have done every other week since March, packing the suitcase and setting an early wakeup so I can drive down to the airport. There are some really good thing I can see way off carrying me into 2015 (below). For the near term, tomorrow marks a 20 day East Coast trip, and what is going to be my last airline travel for a while.
Maybe a long while.
Tomorrow is a hop from Phoenix to Buffalo, and a skip across the border to visit my favorite doodler. Then Thursday its a train ride down to The Big City, to again be part of the Baruch College Schwartz Communication Symposium. And it will be a gathering of Good Folks- Barbara Ganley, Mikhail Gershovich, Grant Potter, Brian Lamb, not to mention the home crew folk like The Luke Waltzer maybe Boone Gorges, Esq. Rumors are of a possible Saturday Jam Space. Over the weekend I plan to be Brooklyn-iter with Michael Branson-Smith, and maybe get to meet the artist Emilio Vavavarella (and collect on the cup of coffee owed for doing his web site).
On June 3 it is another train leg south to Richmond, where it is going to be an intense week of WordPress slinging with Tom Woodward, basking in the glow of Gardner Campbell, as we unleash something perhaps as unMOOC like an open course as I have been in before– it’s all under Top Secret Wraps (meaning we’ve not built it yet), but there is a teaser out today and a wee bit of guidance. See http://thoughtvectors.net. Look for the #thoughtvectors stream in twitter.
And then the suitcase gets emptied for the last time in a while when I return to Strawberry on June 12. I hope to focus on important things like my garden. And riding a new set of wheels thanks to the super energetic Kevin of Pedals ‘n Pistons in Pine, AZ. During my last trip he was able to sell off my fancy shmancy but un-used Road bike, and so I handed him back the cash for a new 29″ modern mountain bike, a “bomber” in his parlance.
This guy is so excited he emails customers photos of the work he has done:
Can’t wait to ride– do ya hear me, Todd?
I am contemplating a possible week road trip to Colorado in late June– coming to Durango, your way Mike Kelly, and on to my friends at Desert Weyr Ranch in Paonia. I’d like to get to see The Tank in Rangley, a project I helped Kick Start.
My last commitment is a keynote and workshop for Arizona K12 Camp Plug and Play, July 7 in Tucson. That’s just a 3 hour drive (which apparently is halfway across some countries). Ideally I’d like ti visit Karen Fasmipaur and Brad down in Portal.
But July is meant to RELAX! My sister and brother-in-law might visit, maybe I can get them to help me redo the kitchen.
Well I do have 1 or 2 web site projects to finish up.
Okay, but that’s just the lead up. The exciting news is for what’s coming in the fall. Brian Lamb and I have been talking this up off an on for… well a well. Today, white smoke came out of the chapel in Kamploops
Friday night celebration. Today the committee unanimously awarded a four month TRU Open Learning Fellowship to the amazing @cogdog! Huzzah!
— Brian Lamb (@brlamb) May 24, 2014
I plan to spend four months on a fellowship at Thompson Rivers University with Brian and colleagues on a suite of projects related to aggregation, wikis, academic open publishing, and more. This will start in mid or late October, and run through the end of February 2015.
Among the many cool things are (a) getting to be n Kamloops; (b) getting to hang out with Brian AND Keira AND Harry and especially Dexter; but most importantly (c) it is a good length of time to not worry about stitching together a bunch of little projects as I have been juggling and poorly managing. It’s a chance to focus in on new projects and work with faculty, staff, and students.
This also means it is time, after taking DS106 to Work… to take a vacation. Or retirement. I am going to dial back the ds106 energy to make space for new interest. It’s not a break, there is always DS106 Radio. I hope to find some folks to take over the care and feeding of The Daily Create (and I still hope to revamp the site as another WordPress customizable theme).
DS106 always morphs and moves. Heck, if you want something to do this summer, some folks have broken off from the main site and moved into a trailer somewhere in the West Texas
But wait, there is more.
It’s not i-dotted or t-crossed, but 2 weeks ago I got a swell awesome email from Richard Elliot, the guy who had arranged both by visits to New Zealand (in 2000 and 2004)
creative commons licensed ( BY-SA ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
And it looks like I will go again in late September-October to keynote Shar-E-Fest and do a bit of a circuit tour.
I am rather stoked to return, for many reasons, the land, the people, but oh yes, just the magic feel of places there
creative commons licensed ( BY-SA ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
Also in the mix is my first attendance/presentation at the 2015 MLA conference in Vancouver (conveniently I will be in the province at the time 😉 I was invited to bring some open learning / ds106ness (see I can not get away from it) to a panel session on “Visionary Pedagogies for the 21st Century: Teaching the Humanities with Digital Technology” with Gabriele Dillmann, Petra Dierkes-Thrun, Amanda Starling Gould. The invite to propose something came out of the blue, from a comment exchange with Gabriele in the Future of Education MOOC via but I look forward to working with these new colleagues; heck they want to start doing google hangouts this summer so we can get to know each other.
This dog has some plans worth packing for!
creative commons licensed ( BY-NC-ND ) flickr photo shared by alee_04
Well, that is a lot of things to be doing, Still True Friend Alan! So when is the time for us to hang out? Plus, more #ds106 Art #4life? But it sounds like a great time. Plus New Zealand has fjords.
Well, bye!
Looking forward to hanging out with you! But the invite din’t entirely come out of the blue… remember, we met through Cathy Davidson’s MOOC on Higher Education? 🙂
Your photos are – like always – awesome!
Gabriele
My bad memory, Gabriele, of course. Corrected my own text.
Isn’t it kind of dangerous to let people like you into our country for 4 months at a time? Can’t you be deemed a security risk or something?
I guess you as a government agent could deem that!
That’s all you’ll be doing? 🙂 Great news on the Fellowship…well deserved, well earned.
Sounds like a great plan. We’re coming out in July to help make a big mess in your kitchen!