I’ve been so busy trying to get Western DS106 set up, making up personas, doing videos, I have not done a lick of work from Blog Riding Camp.
People of the west don’t have much use for excuses.
So I am done. So I am shooting some blog bullets as an intro.
- The first 2.5 decades of my life were stuck on the east coast. I never set foot in the west or saw its immense sky and mountains til I was 24. That Wyoming sky changed everything. I have lived in Arizona since 1987 and cannot see putting roots anywhere else. Within reach are iconic western locations, real ranches, I see cowboys on horses (carrying cell phones) in my town. In a few hours I could be in Monument Valley or Tombstone. And I might just do it soon again.
- I’ve been tossing stuff on the web since 1993. And I am not stopping or slowing down. This here blog has been running since 2003. And it’s not stopping or slowing.
- I’ve been part of ds106 since it’s first open iteration in 2011 as an open participant, as a teacher of in person classes at University of Mary Washington (UMW), as online teacher of it for UMW and for George Mason University. I’ve worked on and expanded the web sites, like the Assignment Bank and the Daily Create, and also tending to the giant Feed Syndication machine. The work I did at DS106 spread even rather to the YouShow at Thompson Rivers University and the Agora project for the University of Guadalajara. I am #4life.
flickr photo shared by cogdogblog under a Creative Commons ( BY ) license
- Through this DS106 work I have amped up every bit of my technical toolkit including a blogging way, wordpress development, taking the Feed Syndication to many other places. Each bit of the way I have gotten better at animated GIFs, remaking images in Photoshop, digital photography, editing audio, editing video, and producing remixes. I am far from my peak. I do all my work on a 13″ MacBookPro (I don’t do Windows) and like where possible to use low tech media tools (e.g. I shoot most videos on my iPad and iPhone). I’ve been known to tack a green screen in my living room or bang around under my house to record an audio scene.
flickr photo shared by cogdogblog under a Creative Commons ( BY ) license
- Despite my online names, domains, tatoo, icons I have no dog. There is a reason. And it might change this year.
- I refuse to take myself seriously. If I cut myself down first, it saves you the trouble.
As for the cowboy / western stuff… thats another post. This is the howdy one.
Howdy.
flickr photo shared by cogdogblog under a Creative Commons ( BY ) license
Top / featured image credit: flickr photo by cogdogblog http://flickr.com/photos/cogdog/23431356254 shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license
I’ve often dreamed of living out West, but perhaps not as remote as you are. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t envy the chance to come visit 🙂
Really looking forward to hearing the story about the dog…I feel as though I only came to know you (digitally at least) during a period of time when the whole “cog” and “dog” part of your digital persona was something that was recently fading into memories, not quite at the forefront of who you are now. Then again, I’ve always been terribly bad at reading people, and trying to piece together what I know of them from fragments scattered across the web.
Thanks Ben. It’s pretty simple- the kind of work I have been doing has been too much trouble for a single guy to leave a dog with someone else; in 2015 I was gone more then 2/3 of the year. I have a long term project starting in March where I will work from home, and that might leave an opening to bring the dog back into the CogDog.
I only disagree with you on one statement, “I refuse to take myself seriously. If I cut myself down first, it saves you the trouble.” While self-effacement has its own charm, I read you as a person both humorous and depthful. Cutting oneself or others down is really no fun, so I’m not joining you at that particular rodeo.
You have proven to me the worthiness of consistency of work and consistency of spirit; I learn from you constantly.