April 2007

There were 8 posts published in April 2007 (this is page 1 of 2).

little movie about bethel

I made another little video, this one is actually decent and may transcend boring though I do use the adjective “little” far too often. It’s just me walking around my town but I managed to put a vocal track (all in one take!), and and audio track and keep some of the original sounds and I think the mix works pretty well. Every time I go to the VT International Film Festival, I leave thinking “I’d like to make a little movie.” This year I finally got off my ass and learned to do it. Like many technological things, it’s not hard to do at all, but I’m finding it a real challenge to learn to do well.

flyby up and down NY

Some people get all their good ideas in the shower. I get a fair amount of good ideas in the pool but have to wait until I’m out and dry to write them down or implement them. However, often I get my good thinking done in the car. This is a bit of a problem since I don’t like to drive much. I like the act of driving, but I sort of don’t enjoy car culture, traffic, wasting resources etc. Since my car got a little banged up this Winter I go back and forth on the “Huh, do I need a newer car since this one is shabby now?” question and it’s usually a good litmus test of my mood at the time [good mood = car is fine, bad mood = changeup the car situation].

Anyhow, I spent enough time driving in the past two days that my driving muscles are sore. I didn’t know that this was possible. I drove down to Suffern NY to talk at a local area library conference. I gave a variant of my 2.0 talk and stuck around for lunch where I got to hear Pete Hamill give a really great lunch talk.

But, back to the car. The drive down was about five hours and the drive back the same. On the way down I took the Thruway and on the way back the Taconic State Parkway to Route 7. Nice easy driving, a lot to look at out the window. I had the radio on and didn’t have to think much about where I was going and I got to plan out what the heck I’m up to in the next six to twelve month time period (upshot: more of the same but hopefully with some more focus and more actual vacation not work-as-vacation) and actually write a few things down. Even though I have a bunch of digital distraction widgets that were packed in the back somewhere, there’s something nice and relaxing about just looking out the window at trees and rivers and the occasional groundhog to help gain some perspective on my whole job/career/path doing wireless, tech, teaching, moderating, typing and clicking.

leaving Kansas

My talk in Dodge City went well, though I may be nearing the end of my fly in one day, talk one day, fly out next day trips. It’s tiring. To get to Dodge City you have to fly over it, to Denver, and then back. This airport is teeny. It has one gate, one employee, and one TSA person. It also has free wifi as did the Boot Hill Bed and Breakfast where I stayed. I’m pretty sleepy and the throat tickle hasn’t abated entirely but neither has it gotten worse which is some sort of victory. My photos of Kansas are up on Flickr. I got to walk around a bit during sunset and look at some old buildings in the downtown area. Tonight I get to DC where I’ll be hanging out with Mary Early, a pal of Forrest and Kelly’s who I just met. She makes beeswax scultures. I get on the train Sunday and will be back by Sunday evening. I’d like to say “and then I’ll sleep for a week” but actually I’ll teach a few classes and then drive down to suburban NY to give a talk on Library 2.0 stuff. Then maybe the week-o-sleeping will commence.

I made a little movie about the train ride down. I sat on the “wrong” side of the train which is the side that doesn’t face the Hudson River. It’s definitely a less dramatic view, but I found there was some nice stuff to look at anyhow.

travelling, pimping, sleeping

My talk at Computers in Libraries went really pretty well. There were a few hundred people — librarian types mostly — who heard my Pimp My Firefox talk.

At the point at which I heard the woman on the train next to me coughing, I knew I might be coming down with something. I’ve had a tickly throat for a few days, not helped at all by talking nonstop from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep. I go to Kansas on Thursday to give a talk, so I’ll be resting up tomorrow.

from here to there

I am once agan confronted with the old travelling salesman/Jessamyn problem where I have to get myself from here to DC somehow. The good news is, this is easy. The bad news is, there are a ton of options. If I were going to LA, the answer would be simple “Fly! Find a cheap ticket!” but to DC the possibilities are all over the place. Drive? Bus? Bus + fly? Drive + train? Carpool? Rideshare? Trip + visit? Through NY? Boston? New Haven? Amherst?

I settled on a short drive + train + train plus a quickie stop in Brooklyn to see some friends and their baby who I haven’t seen since she was about a week old. When I get to DC I’m staying in a hotel that costs more than I pay for a month of heating oil, but it’s covered by the conference committee. I am going to be giving a fun talk on how to make Firefox (the browser) do the things you want it to do including make searching easier, make pages easier to read and putting more resources at your fingertips. I’ve been spending a lot of time mucking about with it this week. The real reason the train won out, of course, is that I can read on the train.

I can, of course, read here at home but there are a lot of other thigns to do as well. lately I’ve been watching James Burke’s Connection series and relearning some of the science and technology history that I had long since forgotten. I have also been watching some old Hercule Poirot mysteries with David Suchet, many of which the library has.

It’s supposed to snow here tomorrow. I suspect there will be cherry blossoms in DC.

The Digitization of the Rural Electrification Project


Sometime in 1999 there was an episode of 0sil8 where Jason had people call his voicemail at work and leave him messages. Then he published them on a little timewasting page. I can't get them to play through the interface but all the .rm files are still there. I liked having an audiorecording of a story I liked, so I made a little web page with the text, and a nice looking picture and linked the story. Then I forgot about it for a long time.

Now that I've been making some little movies, I'm digging through some old folders labelled storage/ancient/reallyreallyold/misc crap/todo and finding things like this. I got a copy of Audio Hijack and made an aiff out of the story. Then I converted it to an MP3 with iTunes.
Then I put it here.
[crossposted from vox]