Wintersong

Well, I'll say this: having an assignment to create something about an obsession sure gives a person nice creative license-- and that obsession an amount of legitimacy.

Because some may say "it's crazy that you created that." And I could say, "oh well, it's my assignment."

Voila. The genius of this entire course.

I thought maybe you'd want to hear more about what actually happened from the horse's mouth. You can do so here, in a 1997 interview with Ekaterina Gordeeva.


1997 Primetime Live
Uploaded by Anneliese. - Basketball, baseball, pro wrestling and more sports videos.

Finally, here is my homage, made possible by the talent of Ingrid Michaelson and Sarah Bareilles. And iMovie.

On the Rock

Call me crazy.

(you probably will).

I mean, what is this? the 90's?

(I wish it was).

But my obsession is with ice skating (not Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, that's a rumor Claire started over at blog.clairececil.com. Never got into for myself, can only barely get myself by on a couple of skates. Maybe that's why it's so fascinating to me-- it's just not something I can do. So I am so enthralled by those who pull it off.

(by pull it off, I mean win the olympics).

I brought up the 90's. And for a reason (not just to make fun of myself for my love of skating). I think that was the golden decade of skating-- it simply won't happen the same way again. I mean, it's still thrilling to watch the winter olympics and I can get myself tied up for an entire afternoon watching youtube videos to bring myself up to speed on new competitors before the winter sport season. That's one thing that is so cool about following skating-- there is a huge online database of videos old and new. No one puts whole baseball games online (wish they would!). The availability of videos online is actually the reason I am able to revisit the 90's and convince myself that skating will never be *that* good again. It wasn't about tricks, it was about artistry and control-- plus the music was better. Cheesier, sure, but much better for skating routines than the anti-climactic movie scores used today, if you ask me.

But you weren't asking me. Or were you?

So anyway. Skating. That's my obsession. My favorite is pairs skating. I still don't understand ice dancing, really. Girls have better music, but guys have better jumps. That's the breakdown.

If you were to ask who my favorite skaters are (I know you didn't), I'd have to say Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov. That's partly because of the whole dying young/tragic romance factor they have going on, but who can really say? Matter of a fact, I made my own video of the two of them back in February (the olympics had me re-hooked). Back in November 1995, after they'd skated together for 11 years, been married for 4, had a 3 year old daughter and had never placed lower than second in any competition they skated, Sergei died of a massive heart attack while they practiced a routine on the ice in Lake Placid. Katia skated a tribute to him three months later.

I took clips of their performances over the years and mashed it together with that tribute performance, set to the music of the program they were practicing (but never got to perform) when he died, Grieg.

Claire likes to laugh when Katia does the camel spin for seemingly forever (at 0:53), as if to suggest quite cheesily that they will go on and on, per Celine Dion's blockbuster hit. She then made some sort of smart comment like "they'll be dizzy forever, too."  ;)



I also created an epilogue video about Katia's solo career and new family with 1998 Men's Skating Olympic Champion, Ilia Kulik.

For the record, Claire laughed at this video per the music before she ever even saw it. Blog world, show a sister some support!

Where Exactly *is* 4 Beeson Ct.?

Here's a basic overview of where I'm from and what went down there.

I did not realize that the "demo" logo would be over the video the entire time-- I am so sorry!

Don't mind the end when I can't figure out how to get out of capture mode ;) (and then when I sketchily--though accidentally-- pull up my old Dean of Students's resume...).

Television Mashup: 24 goes Gleek

Most popular show of 2002, meet most popular show of 2010. My how we've... grown?

Pretty Woman Commentary

It just dawned on me this afternoon that in my rush to upload this commentary to youtube on Tuesday evening, I failed to actually post it to my blog.

My bad.

I chose Pretty Woman as the subject of my commentary because it is really one of the earliest romantic comedies I can remember seeing. At first I thought that was weird because it's all about a hooker. But then I got to thinking about how really it's not a movie about prostitution at all-- it's about dreams and personal agency and the courage to change what you don't like in yourself. So there, naysayers ;)

Halloween From Kids' Perspectives

Enjoy!

The song, in case you are highly interested, can be downloaded FOR FREE here.

American Kids on "All Souls"

Claire, Ashley, Tiffany and I are going to do a documentary-esque "halloween from a kid's perspective" movie.

Schedule of filming:

Friday:

Saturday: Intro clip recording

Sunday: Fall Festival interviews and photos (Claire and Tiffany—Sunday 3-6)

Pass off camera to Ashley

Trick or Treating video footage collection at Ashley’s house (evening)

Monday: Editing (Sadie)

Beyond the Front Door

I've begun the project proposed in this post.

The project can be found here.

(and this post will live on the top left hand side of the blog).

My goal is to archive the persons, places, and things of my childhood home, which we are in the process of moving out of. This is a fun time, but also busy, occasionally frustrating and disheartening. Beyond the Front Door is my chance to slow down and appreciate the memories housed at #4 Beeson Ct. and the home created there after 21 years.

Posts will revolve around a family member, a room, or some object of interest that my Mom has kept over time.

Come on in.

Universally Boring

Trudy Smith on the JFK Assassination

This was my prompt to my parents: "One of you needs to give me a boring story."

Mom, for some reason, instinctually picked the JFK assassination story. This was interesting to me as I got to thinking about it, because few people see such a monumental event as "boring." As I sat and listened to her, myself even knowing this story from previous mentions, I was intrigued. Because it's particularly interesting? No. But because John Kennedy's assassination is a part of the collective identity involved in being American. It is a 9-11 moment (or is it the other way around?), a nation-wide hyperconscious memory. It doesn't matter how boring an individual story is in regard to one of these events, because the audience knows how important that which transpired was for the nation as a whole. That, in turn, makes the individual memory interesting.

My approach was to insert sounds to convey the "freshness" of the news in that moment-- the kinds of sounds running through my Mom's mind as she decides what aspects of the story to tell and what to leave out. She probably remembers hearing the bell and the sniffles and the carriage. She sympathizes with Caroline, who will never get to have conversations about lost teeth with her dad again. She remembers the shots and the retrospective looks at JFK's speeches. She pictures herself trying to get away from the boring TV.

Do you recognize how many times she says TV?

This is the first time she can remember TV being, well, a memory. Before this event it wasn't really noteworthy. Afterwards it became an unforgettable part of her childhood.

Accounts of the assassination of our 35th president are, for the most part, universally boring. But. The memory is universal. Everyone alive and of age remembers where they were and what they were doing. Boring or not, it's worth sharing because it was a shared experience in an era of great division.

I end the audio with a fade out because the debates-- the who shot who and why-- went on forever. Thus, so could (and has) the story.

(credits: http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3365

miller center of public affairs university of Virginia
Gerald l. baliles, director

DoubleHorseCartGheorghieni.wav :: (0:39) :: Cart passing in the streets of Gheorghieni -... added by bourotte2

swings.aif :: (0:13) :: This is a large group of kids playing on a... added by Corsica_S

DaddyIPulledMyToothOut.wav :: (0:04) :: Over the years I saved a few of the voicemails... added by daveincamas

Electric_school_bell.wav :: (0:36) :: An electric school bell recorded at the Nashua... added by John_Sauter

Nose Blowing.wav :: (0:07) :: A sound of a person's nose blowing into a tissue. added by mookie182

http://www.jfk-assassination.de/media/audio/radio.php)

On Dying Young

Monday night. 9 p.m.

It happens just about every week.

Katie: "Are we going to see a movie?"

I usually respond with something like a "heck yeah," and we go on our way. (every now and then the roles are reversed, but you get the point. 6 weeks= 6 movies). Our selection last night is what leads me to the purpose of this post: The Social Network. If all goes according to my maniacal plan, all DS106 Internauts (Charles, are you coming?!) will being seeing it tonight after (but kind of during) class.

"Was it that good?," you ask.

There are so many layers to that question. (Like ogres.)

There was a bit much bumpin'-in-the-club music for my taste. Not because I'm really all that anti-partying, but I am anti-repeated-monotonous-thumpin'-base-all-up-in-my-ear. But I guess I'll get over that for an objective review. Objective in the "personal bias" sort of way, you understand.

The acting was really good, I thought. This is, of course, saying something, because Justin Timberlake plays Napster mastermind Sean Parker and not even his fellow N*SYNC members would let him in On the Line back in the day. (That's not actually true, JT was well on his way and telling the others to cry him a river by then, but it felt an adequate insult to convey just how terribly this could've gone off for Justin.) Matter of a fact, his acting was so good I turned to Katie 3 scenes into his appearance and said "that guy looks like Justin Timberlake." Turns out it was.

She laughed at me. And then I laughed at myself, so really she was laughing with me.

Know what else we were laughing at? The movie. I had no idea it would be as funny as it was. Good thing, too, because it leaves you with a series of questions to ponder that are hardly comical in the least. Sort of a "laugh while you can" kind of thing.

I was dumbfounded by the talk of code and law and shares and percentages. But the idea was always clear. So and so got cheated, this dude is smart and the law on these issues is pretty grey when you want it to be (and then even more grey when you don't want it to be). (I also imagine that the technology talk is quite interesting to those who speak code). It views a lot like a play. Not because of the actors acting out a movie but because the characters each spend the entirety of the film acting out their own version of the story-- trying to set the stage to make his self come out on top. Meanwhile the audience knows they aren't getting the "real" story at all. Not from the characters and not from the writers of this movie.

For most of the movie it was the existence of this movie that had my attention. I remember life before 2004. So well, in fact, that 2004 doesn't really seem like that far back. Yet the world has changed exponentially since then. What's weird about that is that I was watching a movie about how the world has changed.

What's scary is that the story of how hundreds of millions of lives have changed in 6 years starts in the Harvard dorm room of a few drunk guys. Granted one is an internet prodigy, but still just a guy upset about a breakup. A guy who can now claim the creation of a 25 billion dollar program that is available to the public for free. WHAT?!

Katie and I kept wondering how there is already a movie about all of this litigation from just three years ago can now be a movie. A legitimate one. One that is currently shaping every single viewer's opinion of facebook. Not necessarily positively. After all, what we learn is that Zuckerberg essentially went the less moral (though clearly successful) route, leaving his best friend (Eduardo Saverin) in the dust in favor of a more cutting edge advisor, Sean Parker. There bathroom escapades, drug busts, and a wild summer facebook frat house. The heart of this movie-- the heart of facebook-- is sex, greed, and self-interest.

If you ask me, Zuckerberg did it to himself. How is it that this is a movie so soon after these trials covered the front pages? Well, in the age of facebook, word travels fast. A world, that is, that Mark Zuckerberg created.

The movie tracks that creation very well. It's informative, to be sure. It might be more information than Zuckerberg wanted mass-produced. In fact, it might even be more information than I wanted.

I left the movie with a strong-- I mean passionate-- desire to delete my facebook. Zuckerberg just doesn't have the right, you know? It just feels unjust how much power he had (and has) to shape the world we live in. His share is ridiculous! But mostly I was mad because because he does have the right. And he has it because I gave it to him. Every picture I uploaded. Every status I posted. I gave it away. Everything in me screamed to take it back-- but I can't. Even if I do delete my account, the content is out there. Free to cover the next billboard I see on my roadtrip home to AR. So if not to take it back, then STOP.

Katie warned me that I couldn't. I immediately saw her point.

Every single bit of information (or creation-- specifically my pictures) I gave to Mark Zuckerberg, I also shared with my friends. That was the point, right? That's the genius of this all, right? Oh, but what I really did was build up a sense of entitlement in every one of my friends to have that access to me and that content. So if the facebook went, I would automatically be at fault. My pictures would no longer be visible. But they aren't just my pictures anymore. In the minds of friends, every picture they're tagged in is also theirs. How dare I take that away? As if I have the right. So now everyone with access to my facebook albums AND Mark Zuckerberg have the "right" to my stuff. Everyone but me has the right.

Dangit.

When did I sign on to all of this pressure? And how did it inform my every day without me even realizing it?

There is another reason I can't delete the facebook. It's not only the wrath of the upset friends. The fact is that if I deleted my facebook, I would be well on my way to "left in the dust." Of, you know, the future. That's all. If I refuse to engage in the current technology, I'll refuse to be in the next. And the next.

And suddenly I'm sitting at IHOP (literally, we went to IHOP after the movie last night) at 21 years old, feeling like a grandmother because I already fear the pressure and the self-interest that will take over subsequent generations because of the facebook mindset that even I've been tricked into. The mindset that leads me to check the internet *at least* twice a day to see if someone has commented on my picture or my wall or my status. An anxious desire to feel like people care about me. Which quickly turns into an attitude of that people should care about me. It has this nasty way of producing such self-importance. The irony? With 5 headline-making teenage suicides that I know of in the past TWO weeks, we are witness to the least self-confident generation ever. Sad.

We're the most connected generation, but we're so disconnected. From the faces we pass on the street and the parents we're having dinner with and the friends we're hanging out with and the people in the car in the intersection who never saw it coming because we were on our phones. We see a profile page and feel like we know a person immediately. But it takes time to know a heart and a soul. We've been fooled.

Of course, that's not all on the shoulders of Mark Zuckerberg. But it does weigh heavily on the mind of the viewer leaving The Social Network, and that is no accident.

The final shot (SPOILER ALERT) is so telling. Zuckerberg sits at the empty conference room table of a major law firm having just been sued by his best friend and "friend requests" the girl whose heart he broke-- who broke his heart. Click after click he refreshes the computer quite literally looking for acceptance.

That concerns me. It concerns me for the generations to come. And it makes me a grandmother in a 21 year old body.

Don't worry, though. As we sat there over pancakes, eating our sorrows away, Katie informed that she thinks we're the type who'll die young, anyway.

As for me? Part of me believes I left my youth-- the innocent kind where all you need is your little piece of the world and the people in it to feel content-- with the year 2004 (the year of the facebook).

At least, that's what I'll tell the grandkids.

I'll tell you to go see the movie yourself.

(disclaimer: I do realize there are quite beneficial aspects of advancements such as facebook, I just decided to go all doom and gloom for a sec :D)

Sentimental Heart

	She & Him - Sentimental Heart .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

There are two things you should know about me.

They're kind of contradictory, I know.

A. I am a sap for sentiment.

B. I love change.

Right?! I don't get it either. I love the old. So much so that I chose to study History for a major. But the new? That's where the action is-- keeps things interesting. Still, I can't just move on and leave things be (there's a good southern phrase for you). No, no. I'm much too sentimental for that.

Yes I do exhaust myself, thankyouverymuch.

Here's how all of this has to do with my project proposal for the semester:

My Dad (pictured below with wax Beyonce)



just took a job offer to move 2 hours Northwest of Little Rock (the capital is pictured below)





(where my whole family is currently located)



(whole family)

for a really cool, program building, technology integrating, innovative teaching position.

We are so excited. (that's the change-lovins in me)

But. I grew up at this house for literally my entire life. Save for the first four months. (herein lies the sentiment-lovins in me)





We are now officially in the process of packing up 21 years, and I treasure the little things that mean much more than they let on. Specifically, I treasure the 3 boxes of miscellaneous memories my Mom has been collecting over the years--Papers, particularly meaningful cards, scribbled notes and four-year-old's drawings, journals, diplomas. I know that my family probably wishes I'd treasure these things a little less, because as they do actual work to pack up the house, I'm sitting in the corner with these "treasures."



My proposal, then, is to make sitting in a corner with these things an assignment. "Sorry, y'all, I have to do this." ;)

This project is my out from packing.

Win for me. Hopefully win for you. Definite loss for the packing effort.

Here's the plan:

I'll archive these objects that've collected over the years. From one medium (card, paper, printed photo) to another (digital, baby!), I want to document the 21 years this box represents. There are many ways to do this, but I will limit myself to 3.

1. Take photos of the actual documents themselves-- not a whole digital archive of each page, but one (or 4!) representative picture of each object to convey what it is.

2. Type up the content. Mother's day card, acceptance letter, kindergarten journal-- no matter. With the transcript, I will offer a few words of context. This will be to convey what the document means.

3. I'd like to do a little video-documenting along the way. An interview of my Mom explaining how she chose what to keep and when she decided to start keeping this collection. A video of my sister describing what it was like to win first chair of All-State madrigals-- alto. Dad discussing highlights of working for the same hospital for 21 years and how it has changed over time.

I'm excited for the possibilities! I'll be able to grab these boxes from home over fall break and plan to document at least two objects from them every week. I'd like to do so here on this blog, with all of my entries for Operation Sentimental Heart classified under a separate page.

You may now consider my idea proposed.

"Please, It's All About Popular"

or, "my favorite pictures from our epic week of dailyshoot 2010."

alternately, alternately entitled, "things that suck: putting image links under "visual" instead of "html" and having to redo all of your links."

(the last one didn't have the edge I was going for)

Hey everyone, great job last week! I had an excellent time going through all of the pictures and appreciate those of you who dropped by to take a look at my stuff. We are all winners.

Day 1:

Carlie's "Green Veins" takes the foliage day prize because I love the lighting and the way you can see the veins that are necessary for plant life so vividly.

Day 2:

It's all about the fathers and sons. I did a picture of my brother, Luke, and his baby. Jim Groom depicted what I envision for Luke and Truett's future-- frolicking in the front yard, having "conversations," and just general adoration from both parties to the other.



Day 3:

I didn't particularly like this day's prompt, but such is the nature of a project like this. Ed captured a photo with the creativity I could not muster and I love the incorporation of the actual pocket in the picture.



Day 4:

Jessica hit the target with this bear. I couldn't put my finger on it for the longest time, but now I think I know why it's my favorite. Most of the time, in "real" life, when a person looks at you straight on like the bear is in this picture, they are spaced out or just taking in what you're saying. People don't just look at each other and smile for the sake of smiling.

Bears do, apparently. I also really like Bear's hoodie-- awesome!



Day 5:

I guess I just have this thing for little figurine thingys, but I really like how debonair Stephanie's frog looks up against the lamp stand and how his stance is reflected in the base. A nice departure from the traditional mirror avenue that most of the class (including myself) took.



Day 6:

I don't know how the mailroom people do it, but I am so glad they manage the chaos. Morrgan perfectly captured the behind the scenes mess they have to deal with, and I love the entire composition!



Day 7:

The red stripe, the bridge and the trees make this photo of Jenn's. So perfect and so *classic* Fredericksburg. Well, really classic for anywhere.



Day 8:

I never knew there were so many ways to stack books! I loved how Ashley arranged hers-- reminded me of Jenga. Which reminds me of college life. Not because we all sit around and play jenga, but because my mind feels that scattered sometimes-- that on the brink of collapse. This would especially be true if I was trying to master the subjects represented by Ashley's stack of books.

A Whole New World

that's where we'll be. You and me.



(click the link. i promise.)

(full disclosure: I only read 3 of these over the summer)

Nowhere to Go

5 of these pairs of shoes actually were just around the apartment. As I cleaned up the apartment, I realized that I could line the shoes up to be symmetrical. I added a few more pairs for effect.

Image Story Impact

I am an indecisive person. So "alternately" assignments kind of stress me out.

I got over it.

Once I just decided to do both.

As for the image story from online that has impacted (that is passive voice and is terrible) me, I choose the raising of the flag over Iwa Jima.The whole story (according to Wikipedia) can be read here. It was the second flag raised over the island that day, since the higher ups decided the first was too small to be seen from surrounding territories and also wanted the first flag as a souvenir. The "real" story behind the image itself is highly disputed. There are questions often raised about the authenticity of the shot-- whether or not Rosenthal staged the photo. There are questions regarding the identity of the soldiers. There are more serious moral questions about the bond campaign that the soldiers were forced to be a part of in the days following the battle. So much emotion wrapped up in a single image that ultimately exists today to rally support around the Marine Corps.



For a long time, that's all I saw it as. A victorious, patriotic image-- no questions asked. And it is that. Look at all of the reproductions, the statue, the museum. Then, on a college searching trip to Virginia with my parents, I saw Clint Eastwood's 2006 Flags of our Fathers. I knew at that point that I wanted to study history in college, but this helped create for me a new idea of history. There is what we see, and then there is the story behind that image. There is not a lot about history-- that which is written about the past-- that is true. There is just strength in the collection of many perspectives.

I got to see the statue in D.C. on that same trip and I fell in love again with history and the new perception of it that was forming. The idea that you can question events, research them, and come to a conclusion regarding them that is your own based on the evidence that is not at all your own.

As for an image from my own life-- it's slightly less heavy.



What is happening here, you ask? So one day my roommate Claire (you may know her) got herself locked out on our balcony at the crack of dawn. Of course, Katie and I were not yet awake. Or conscious, apparently. So Claire knocked and knocked and knocked. Near tears, she banged. Fist and all. (You know where this is going).

Until, presto. Katie and I never really heard a thing. Or we at least heard something but failed to investigate. Thus we were left to wake up and find this note, hours later. It's quite cryptic.



(when Claire came home we reenacted it. Hence, the photograph.)

College.

alternately entitled, "I will miss this."



there are so many things happening in this picture, it's ridiculous. (it might even belong on Tiffany's blog).

I was originally going to take a picture of only the candy bowl platter, until I zoomed out and realized that the surroundings only add to the chaos.

And to me it's beautiful. Because it's college. And I will miss this.

What do you spy?

"Here We Go"

I remember when I was little.

(are you on the edge of your seat?)

Once my grandmother heard the appropriate number of seatbelt "clicks," she'd put the car in drive and speed off down her steep Texas driveway proclaiming, almost just stating (as if exasperated by the struggle to get us all wrangled into the vehicle) "here we go."

That's what I think of when I see this picture.

That and the unconditional love I have for my 1998 Sunfire. He's a sportscar, I'll have you know.

Image Story: A *Love* Story

A gnome became a real boy named Jim Groom who went on a joyride and found a girl and asked her on a date. She went home, caught her reflection in the teapot and was displeased with the appearance of her hair. So she dyed it last minute. They went on a date the the park with matching lanterns. Afterwards she received a "mushy" text.

We All Scream

I know what you're thinking.

I think.

Ice cream is sticky.

Yes.

But first. It's soft.

Just ask Addie.

She'll tell you it was worth the sticky hassle to first have fun with the soft, cool summer's relief.

Like with life, the good (however fleeting) most times outweighs the bad.

So for the purpose of daily shoot, I'm calling ice cream soft. We'll deal with the sticky later.

One Hand in My Pocket

Day 3: Contents of my pocket. Since I left my wallet at home on a road trip to Chattanooga, the 3 cards that represent my life shacked it up cozy in my pocket all weekend.

Complementary "Objects"

Day 2 of daily shoot: It doesn't get more complementary than father and son, does it?

Kind of Perfect

This weeks assignment is, well, kind of perfect.

I guess-- since, you know, we're four weeks into the semester (what?!?)-- I should introduce myself and the theme of this blog.

By the title one can assume that the content (that I'm putting out there to engage the internet as a producer-- mere consuming will no longer do. That's according to "the Reverend" Jim Groom) will revolve around photography. What scares me about that, friends, is the standard involved in engaging one's self in "Photography." Capital P.

It means taking myself seriously, right? I should be confident in my ability and all. Photographers have people hire them to create images of their lives and happenings.

I believe people are constantly creating their own images of life and happening. The camera need not be involved for that. And for that matter, neither should a photographer be hired as a third party. An event is no more special for having a picture of it. Does that make me a better or worse photographer?

I think it hardly makes me a capital P photographer at all.

It just makes me  person who loves life. A grown-ass girl who believes in a God-- and Son and Holy Spirit-- that gives life. And Who takes it away. Who is to be praised.

It makes me a 21 year old who loves people and home and adventures and fun. Who is compelled by stories and concerned with hurt. I'm a college student who doesn't want building-block experiences to go unnoticed or unappreciated.

I'm not creating the images. That's taken care of. But I long to capture them. To, you know, make it last longer. Whatever it happens to be on a given day. You never know.

I'm not the best editor, I haven't a lick of official instruction on how to operate my camera, and I often take 20 shots to get 2 good ones. That's on a good day. But I have things worth cherishing. And so I do. With my heart. Then with my lens. Hopefully with my words.

That's where the blog thing is, well, kind of perfect.

A Fight to the Death

Today's Daily Shoot assignment was to showcase the beauty of living foliage. Just in time, too, since the green leaves that sprawl onto my cement balcony are beginning their seasonal fight to the death. An excellent Friday reminder to love the green while I can-- the beautiful orange haze will befall the foliage in due time. Death is not always scary.

Goin' To the Chapel

Father of the Bride in 6 Frames:

The Good 'Ole Days

I confess-- before class on Tuesday, I had no idea what the difference between the Web and the Net actually was. Matter of a fact, going back to my last post, you will see that I used them interchangeably.

That is going to be harder and harder to do as the days pass, apparently. And I will look back to my post on 9-7-10 (on my iPhone, of course), sip some lemonade (while driving my car, of course) and then probably tweet from my pocket (or possible directly from my mind?) about the good 'ole days when the net didn't cost me anything and the web was a promising frontier. When moguls weren't "finding choke points" by which to get rich. I'll reminisce about the days of the world-"wide-open"-web and bitterly discuss the world of capitalism with my grandchildren. I'll look back to 9-9-10 as the day of warning-- the day I learned the real difference between the web and the internet and finally knew why to foresee a time when more stuff would supposedly make life more convenient and come at a higher price to me, when really I'm happy as a clam to sit in front of my computer screen and browse to my hearts desire at very little cost to me. I don't need the perpetual latest and greatest.

But.

Oh, there's a but. I also actively participate in facilitating the future of an app-led existence. Before I knew I really wanted an iPhone, my family had a plan and baby, I had one. Which comes in handy for speedy texting and, yes, twittering, and navigating my directionally challenged self across the country from Arkansas. The internet is, in this sense, still integral to my daily existence. But so is, for that matter, the web.

And so, these are the good 'ole days. When I could have both. Today is a day that I can take my big, bulky computer to class to take notes and facebook even as I show my "implicit acceptance of a nonweb standard" by using ever-more-convenient apps. (As an aside, we used a coin-flipping app in a class trivia game the other day instead of a real coin. I find this telling).

While this is coming at a price to my Dad, who chose to gift me with the latest and greatest in technology, I'm happy to have my cake and eat it too. But once I'm buying? Well, let's just say I'll miss the web.

Then again, I already miss the days when I wasn't "locked in" to facebook simply to keep up with the times. I find it as stressful as Jim Groom describes it. So why am I still in? Because it wouldn't be the "good 'ole days" without it.

I'm sorry if this post is long and boring. I'm merely trying to soak up my time with the generative web while it will have me. Bigger and better is on its way, I guess. But I have to say, I'll miss this.

Living on the Edge

"Leverage customer-self service and algorithmic data management to reach out to the entire web, to the edges and not just the center, to the long tail and not just the head."

-Tim O'Reilly, What is Web 2.0

In short, Web 2.0 is the web I've unknowingly watched come to fruition throughout my 21 year childhood (I just turned into an adult, so I can write about those days fondly and with much wisdom from hindsight.-- One drawback to written communication via the internet? Communication tools such as the sarcasm I just called upon are less easily detected. So I'll just blatantly call the sarcasm. I digress). I've always known the internet to be a progressive entity-- always changing. Up until reading, "Web 2.0," however, I always attributed changes in web technology to the collective ideas it embraces and allow. I never before thought that somewhere in the history of the internet there was a monumental shift in software framework to allow the existence of that collective fluidity.

I suppose my point is that there was a change that occurred, allowing for the inclusion of many people as cooperative programmers and administrators, before the web as I know and engage it became possible. Technology's own survival of the fittest, if you will. I never knew to distinguish between 1.0 and its superior sequel-- the age of flickr and wordpress and google and geeks being cool.

I'm glad to know of the literally life-changing change of focus for web features, because as a person very much on the edge of self-service and data management (as in not one of the majorly contributing, centralized and crucial computer geeks) I am one of those lives changed by the 2.0. I am no stranger to advocating its benefits-- even before I could put my finger on the details of the technological innovations geared towards a broadening user base, I was preaching its gospel. That is, I became the first amongst my group of friends to engage the web through blogging, flickr, twitter, and youtube (I feel like that sounded like I'm trying to make myself sound cool, when I am well aware that the phenomenon of the modern internet is made possible by the fact that many thousands were joining in these programs at the same time as me. Thus, I am not that cool. But then, these advancements make each person feel that cool. That's the magic of playing the web towards participation). Even then, I believed strongly in the power of the potential audience out there through the world wide web. What makes Web 2.0 run, though, is not the volume of the audience, but rather the volume of users.

Web 2.0 is marked by a list of competencies expected of each new company. The first item on the list is a company characterized by free services (ie, the database that is google) as opposed to the obligation to purchase a server and individual software tools. As seen in the decline of Doubleclick and the subsequent rise of Overture, as in the rise and fall of Netscape, Web 2.0 is not so much about publishing or the power exerted by advertisers as it is so much about consumer participation and the collective power of many small sites.

A second requirement for a 2.0 company is the control of data sources-- exemplified by hyperlinking (driven by repetition and intensity), yahoo! for cataloguing information, ebay for collective market exchange, and Amazon (utilizing user engagement to distinguish itself from other data sources). Insights from these basic principles lend themselves to the creation of even stronger links that do not just control information sharing between 2 sites, but rather allow for a continuous stream of information from any given site.

The third competency deals with owning an application's core data, given that the majority of information on the internet is not actually published with rights. It is not only important to own the core data, though-- 2.0 is largely based on trusting people with dispersing that data and letting go of the hard boundaries of copyright. Fourthly, Web 2.0 exists to provide a service, not to sell a product. It wasn't until reading this that I thought to be truly appreciative of the free service of google and flickr.

The fifth principle stems from the idea of free information sharing-- making data available to different audiences through syndication instead of controlling information at strictly two ends. Number six involves making use of the web and the design of 2.0 to give quality to single devices not traditionally tied to the software of any one computer. Number seven leaves the door open for more successful models for business and development, driven by the competitive nature of growing user experience.

This is the nature of the modern internet. There are still questions in my mind regarding the collective function of (what are to me) broad terms such as server and interface and domain and software and coding. But I recognized in this article's description of 2.0 the face of the internet I have come to know well--as a person merely populating the edge of the web with a little blog space and some flickr photos.

"Greatest Story Ever Told"

After the first class, Professor Groom shared with us a link to what he called "the greatest story ever told"-- that is Robert Shaw's Jaws sililoquy. While that post was not necessarily an assignment, I believe the ability to respond to that thought and have it "count" within the academic sphere, as well as the creative freedom that this forum called the internet allows, speaks to the message conveyed in our first "real" assignment-- Garder Campbell's Cyberinfrastructure (or "the bags of gold") lecture.

Therefore, I will begin this post with one of my favorite movie moments that captivates me every time. It might be the Michael J. Fox/Michael Douglas combo. They aren't necessarily telling a story in the clip, per Robert Shaw, but the clip itself tells a story about a citizen's responsibility to both question leaders and be prepared to differentiate between good and bad leadership.

Lewis: "People want leadership, Mr. President. And in the absence of genuine leadership, they will listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it, they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand."

Andrew Shepherd: "We've had Presidents who were beloved, who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. They drink it because they don't know the difference."

I feel the responsibility to know the "sand" from the "water" is especially important as rapidly growing technology creates faster, easier access to information regarding what issues we choose to engage and which leaders we choose to represent ourselves as individuals and as a nation to a world that is ever-connecting.

We have a new alphabet.

This is, perhaps, the most revolutionary part of Campbell's lecture for me. Maybe it reflects my relative immaturity in regards to all things computers, that the most elementary of concepts helps me to understand the most complex of concepts as we tackle and engage the web this semester. For a long time, though, I've  considered myself merely a consumer. Google is something you do to get information. But to give it? To express my own ideas, with my own identity? Certainly that is too complicated for me to approach.

Then again, I wouldn't say "no" to a bag of gold, would I?

So I am reaching out my hands, that they might be filled with a new currency. Complicated as it may be at first, this is the stuff of relevance and change and revolution. Gardner Campbell's theory of personal cyberinfrastructure is, at its core, the invigorating message that I have something meaningful to share. Servers and domains and webspaces may sound confusing, but somewhere in there is an identity I have to be willing to claim for myself. The web already knows who I am as a consumer-- it is just that good. It is high time that introduce myself to the web as a producer.

What  I already love about the structure of this class and Campbell's vision as the framework is that it basically exists to introduce us to a new alphabet and provide thought-provoking prompts. We choose the words we form with the letters and I am confident that will prove to be a diverse collection of ideas. Isn't that the point?

I believe Campbell would agree-- and have something much smarter to say about it. It is time to explore the expressive capabilities at our fingertips and appreciate the ability to do so within the academic realm. This is the alphabet of higher education. And while mine might not be the "greatest story ever told" (I assure you it is not), I am excited to learn a new forum through which to tell it and to hear from others through their own design.

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