Snap out of it...

Sorry about the last post. Silly, sappy stuff, not worthy of print, really. I am in the middle of a website redo that is driving me bananas, so I suppose a digression into Dickinson is ok. Talk about semantic markup...

Hope

Emily Dickinson in this pre-Christmas post. Hope is apt now, but is still sometimes hard to hear...too many gales still blowing around me, I'm not quite sure when it will stop and I'll be in safe harbor. I guess I can hope that it will be soon. Anyway, here it is: "Hope."

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Reevaluating, Redesigning, and Revaluing

TechTimes, the website I manage for work, is in need of redesign. I know it in my bones. It is need of an overhaul. And it's killing me. It's like killing off one of my children. In this post I'm going to walk you down the path to a successful redesign, and, hopefully, reveal some of the dangers, traps, and pitfalls all creative people face as they do the unthinkable: they kill off their offspring.

Film Noir and Story

This really fascinated me when I came upon it. It's an analysis of Fritz Lang's 1945 film "Scarlet Street," and this particular scene really corresponds to a story I've been thinking about. The idea of Chris (Edward G. Robinson) as "the dupe," the guy who blindly follows along, the guy who chooses to ignore the signs directly in front of him, is just like the protagonist of a story that I've been toying with for a few years now, except in my story the protagonist is a woman. The story focuses on the idea that you can choose to accept or ignore certain things in life, just like you can accept or disregard certain items on the cafeteria line, and it's often the decision that reveals the most about us. In the story, the woman is left with a decision: Should she accept or ignore her husband's abandonment of her mother at a crucial medical moment, or should she confront him. If she does, what are the ramifications?

I think that's what interests me. So many of us choose to let certain things go, in effect not choosing to look the devil in the eye, but, rather, to accept what is offered up and treat it like manna from Heaven. In the turning of the eye, we lose the full experience of life, and thereby commiserate in our own dissatisfaction.

It's funny how dormant ideas can spring back to life in the seeming blink of an eye! Onto the writing!

Sometimes the Small Things Matter Most..

OK, so it's the little stuff that matters, which is why I love this song so much. It's the fact that you're together, that you care about someone, that you'd do the small as well as the large for them...that's what counts. I'm just being mushy, I know, but I love the fact that I can walk the 500 miles, no, I would want to walk the five hundred miles, because of how I feel right now. And someday I will fall down at your door...

When I wake up, well I know I'm gonna be,
I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next you
When I go out, yeah I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you

If I get drunk, well I know I'm gonna be

I'm gonna be the man who gets drunk next to you

And if I haver up, Yeah I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who's havering to you

But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles
To fall down at your door

When I'm working, yes I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who's working hard for you
And when the money, comes in for the work I do
I'll pass almost every penny on to you
When I come home(When I come home), well I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who comes back home to you
And if I grow-old,(When I grow-old) well I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who's growing old with you

But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles
To fall down at your door

When I'm lonely, well I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who's lonely without you
And when I'm dreaming, well I know I'm gonna dream
I'm gonna Dream about the time when I'm with you
When I go out(When I go out), well I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you
And when I come home(When I come home), yes I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who comes back home with you
I'm gonna be the man who's coming home with you

But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles
To fall down at your door

Self Reflection

Why are we so hard on ourselves? Why do we mentally tally every failure, every mistake, every deficiency and use it as the hammer with which we pound ourselves down? Sometimes we need to rise above the muck and mire of our daily lives, of the things that hurt us, and agree to push on through it. Sometimes we need to cast it all aside and body surf the momentum of life. Good things will happen if you're open to them. Bad things lurk in shadows and wait for you to be vulnerable.

If you allow the quicksand to weigh you down, to suck you in, you'll never move on. No excuses. You can either move or sink. There is no standing still, for if you stand still all of the forces around you will just move on without you- and expect you to stand still and won't understand when you resist. Won't understand why you are crying in the car, or why you won't accept things as they are. If you sink, you'll...well...sink.

Don't sink. Move. Live.

And don't get me started on being a part of something. We are all part of something. Sometimes you can be a part of something if you just accept the invitation. Sometimes it's better to do that...gives you perspective. Gives you energy. Gives you a fresh start.

Don't we all want a fresh start from time to time?

Fall Camping- Musings on Nature, Special Moments, and the Great Outdoors

I went camping this weekend. Fall camping. I went with a friend who assured me that fall camping was the best, extraordinary actually: no bugs, scenic foliage, chilly nights, etc. So we packed the gear up and went to North-South Lake in the Catskills ( a fantastic campground, by the way: spectacular views- see left-, great amenities, and great hiking). We got there at 2, set up camp, started a fire, and settled in for our great escape weekend. Of course, you guessed it- it rained. It rained from 11 pm on Saturday night through the night on Sunday into Monday. A real soaker. We left Sunday night, so I'm speculating on the whole rain through Monday thing, but I'm pretty sure the rain in Albany was consistent with the rain in the Catskills.

Now I thought that the whole "wash out" experience would really, pardon the pun, dampen the experience, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that rain, while making everything a bit more difficult, soggy, and muddy, really had no bearing on the experience we had. Sure we huddled under the netted camping enclosure, playing Scrabble on the picnic table, sure we ate more than we ever do, sure we worked harder at sustaining a fire in the drenching rain than either of us ever has, sure we slept later on Sunday morning than either of us has in ages: it just didn't matter. Because, when it was all said and done, we had a moment frozen in time, a reserved second just for us amid the soggy pines where time didn't seem to be flying by at breakneck speed, where emails and text messages just couldn't penetrate the no cell coverage zone we were blissfully concealed in. It was a great experience, highlighted by the following moment among many:

It was later in the day Saturday, before the rain came. Before dinner we hiked off to explore the camp ground, dusk just starting to peek through the pines as we assessed the other camp sites. As we turned down into the loop of sites closest to the lake, we thought we had found THE site: great, level area, view of the lake, close access to the bathrooms (essential for those 3am runs!). Mentally taking note of the lot number, we moved on through the loop, fully expecting to return to our site and eat. Rounding the corner, we found an empty site whose view of the lake was equally gorgeous to our previous favorite, except this one had a little trail apparently running down to the lake. Making sure we weren't intruding- the bikers on the previous lot were too busy cranking up Lynrd Skynrd, and the old folks on the next site were distracted with their lawn chairs and parkas to notice anything- we slipped through the site and down the path. It emptied onto a wide rock shelf that rimmed the lake's whole lower shore. The water lapped up over the edges in gently cascading sheets, and the tall grasses in the shallows swayed in the wind. We watched the gray clouds stream by, swirling across the horizon, dipping down to create two levels of iron colored sky- the lower wispy and light, like strands of some immense web, hovering below the impassable and inscrutable darkness above. We stayed there, exploring the shoreline, talking about the possibilities of staying on this spot with its private access to the water, for at least fifteen minutes, just soaking in that particular moment, the intersection of nature and us and our borrowed juncture of time. But then the clouds swirled a bit too low, the chill came back into the air, and we knew it was time to return to camp and the fire and dinner that awaited there. We knew it would rain, although not how much, but we didn't care. For that moment, everything else melted away. What a magical gift. Aglow with this discovery, we slipped back up towards our camp, and the night that would soon swallow us up.

It was a magical time, and one that we all need as the pressures build. Sometimes it's the smallest moments that remind us of who we are, what we stand for, and what we hope to accomplish with the time we have been allotted. Yeah, fall camping, even in the rain, was pretty special.

Oh, by the way, the picture above isn't mine. I did borrow a really good camera for the trip, fully expecting to be taking lots of foliage and landscape pics, but the rain precluded me from even taking the camera out and risking its damage, so when I sat down to do this entry I had no picture to showcase the beauty of the lake. I was stuck. The picture above is by fellow Flickr photographer Ben Perry (his work can be found here) who just happened to capture the view we found in the above story. Good shot, Ben. Next time I'll risk it and break out my camera...

Gifts Freely Given

Welcome to the last day of summer vacation.

And being in the midst of such an auspicious event gets me thinking in platitudes. So as I lounge on the deck, squeezing out the last dregs of summer sunshine (actually, it's chilly, and I'm huddled in the kitchen with the windows shut looking for some solar inspired heating to emanate from the overcast, gray sky), I got around to reflecting on the notion of freely given gifts.

I have been blessed recently with some very positive signs in my life, which have thankfully offset the less then stellar signs that have also popped up. I guess the end of summer is like that: a blend of the good with the bad. A time to reflect on the things that were accomplished and the things that weren't, which used to be a ritual I participated in every late August. And while I could focus on the negative (like having to hire two new teachers in a relatively quick manner), I will choose to gravitate towards the positive, so no the deck didn't get stained and yes I probably could have worked more, but the real gems of the summer were the gifts that came for free.

So here's the list, not in its entirety, but as close to complete as I can disclose publicly:

• I had a wonderful vacation on Cape Cod (two, actually).
• I spent a great weekend with family in New Hampshire.
• The Cole Summer Writers Institute was another great success.
• I was able to develop TechMondays, a series of professional development courses for work.
• I opened a Flickr account.
• I reconnected with former students and old friends (thank you Facebook and Twitter).
• I learned about and created a wiki.
• I am almost done with the National Book Award winning novel (Shadow Country, by Peter Matthiessen, which is actually made up of three books: Killing Mr. Watson, Lost Man's River, and Bone by Bone- a whopping 900 page revision of these three books...so it's justifiable that it took me over a month to get there!).
• I learned thrift (too long a story for here).
  
• I continued the blog.
• I biked and ran a lot.
• I found a great new hiking spot in Duanesburg.
• I saw James Taylor, Sheryl Crow, and Yo Yo Ma at Tanglewood.
• I spent a lot of time with my kids.
• I enjoyed the time I spent with my parents.
  
• I spent a lot of time with a special person in my life, and have gotten closer to her. Our relationship has grown immensely (so much so that I am at my most confident now...feels good- but no personal stuff here!).

These all constitute freely given gifts, and they truly are the best. Summers go too quickly, and the winter lasts far too long for my taste, but at least we all made it through healthy, and can look forward to next summer's crop of halcyon moments.

Goodbye, summer, we hardly knew ye...

Priorities

Found this pic on Flickr, and couldn't help but agree with the quote from Ana Quindlen that Kristi (Flickr screen name: effulgence- which means a brilliant radiance...I looked it up!) used to title her work. Such a cool shot, and one that means a lot to all of us readers out there. As for the quote, well, it's just superb. Here it is:

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

Really says it all, you know? Raising two readers, I can see how this applies to my life, and I have books everywhere. In a marathon cleaning session earlier in the week this hit home. I cleaned it all from top to bottom, really sweated it out because the house was a mess and the summer affords me the time to attend to these things, and in that process ended up re-shelving at least twenty books. Some were in piles, some were on nightstands, some were on coffee tables and dinner tables and breakfast bars and counters, well, you get the idea. And it made me happy to think that my kids are being raised in this environment, where their rooms, although not necessarily clean, are the repositories of lots of books.

My youngest is reading the Camp Confidential book series, and my oldest can't squeeze in enough Harry Potter and Twilight (she's read both sets at least five times each) between summer reading books like About a Boy and The Notebook (not really a literary masterpiece, but different in that it had no vampires or wizards!). I'm finishing Peter Matthiessen's Shadow Country, a mammoth combination of three books about the Florida frontier at the turn of the twentieth century and a National Book Award winner.

And this makes me happy (as my friend Tricia will attest to; come to think of it, her house is pretty well stocked with books, too!), because even if your house is messy, as long as there are books in it, it is a home, a place where ideas can roam as free as the dust bunnies, and where the soul can fly free. I suppose you still have to clean, though.

Landslide

I took my love, I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
till the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love
Can the child within my heart rise above
Can I sail thru the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life

Well, I've been afraid of changing
cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
Im getting older too

Oh, take my love, take it down
Climb a mountain and turn around
If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well the landslide will bring it down

If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well maybe the landslide will bring it down

Love Letters

When I get stuck sometimes with my writing, and I get stuck pretty often these days- damn personal life poking into the creative realm!- I like to cull some inspiration from the muses. Of course, the internet is the new muse. Just a few clicks away and inspiration jumps right off the page (and, no, I'm not talking about the adult themed kind of inspiration). So, in that spirit, I have found a love letter from Ludwig van Beethoven. I found it on Flickr- go figure- embedded in a photostream whose author (photographer) was going through a divorce. Now this has really no relevance, but I thought the juxtaposition of this love letter that her husband apparently found and reprinted for her just pages before the horribly sad photos that she posted after her breakup was too ironic. But the letter is beautiful, as beautiful as her photos are sad. Life is a strange journey, no doubt. Well, here's the letter, followed by links to the photograph and her photostream.

July 6, in the morning

My angel, my all, my very self - Only a few words today and at that with pencil (with yours) - Not till tomorrow will my lodgings be definitely determined upon - what a useless waste of time - Why this deep sorrow when necessity speaks - can our love endure except through sacrifices, through not demanding everything from one another; can you change the fact that you are not wholly mine, I not wholly thine - Oh God, look out into the beauties of nature and comfort your heart with that which must be - Love demands everything and that very justly - thus it is to me with you, and to your with me. But you forget so easily that I must live for me and for you; if we were wholly united you would feel the pain of it as little as I - My journey was a fearful one; I did not reach here until 4 o'clock yesterday morning. Lacking horses the post-coach chose another route, but what an awful one; at the stage before the last I was warned not to travel at night; I was made fearful of a forest, but that only made me the more eager - and I was wrong. The coach must needs break down on the wretched road, a bottomless mud road. Without such postilions as I had with me I should have remained stuck in the road. Esterhazy, traveling the usual road here, had the same fate with eight horses that I had with four - Yet I got some pleasure out of it, as I always do when I successfully overcome difficulties - Now a quick change to things internal from things external. We shall surely see each other soon; moreover, today I cannot share with you the thoughts I have had during these last few days touching my own life - If our hearts were always close together, I would have none of these. My heart is full of so many things to say to you - ah - there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all - Cheer up - remain my true, my only treasure, my all as I am yours. The gods must send us the rest, what for us must and shall be -

Your faithful LUDWIG.

Photo here.
Photostream of Un4gtableann here.

Hope

So I go to the "Get Motivated" Seminar today at the Times Union Center with a group of colleagues. The big arena, lots of motivational speakers, heavy sales pitch for investment seminars and book deals sandwiched between musical interludes provided by former Santana vocalist Leon Thomas. Oh, and the MC for the day was an overly perky blond in a tight skirt complete with cheerleader-like screams. Steve Forbes was OK, but his talk was a rehash of his failed presidential platform. Tamara Lowe, the founder of the company that put on this elaborate charade, capped off the morning with a blend of psycho-babble about motivation, confessional about her dropout, drug addicted past, and, yes, a rap about how she had found Jesus Christ. It really set the tone for lunch.

There was one speaker, though, that managed to tie together a string of motivational quotes. Ironically, I can't remember his name. He quoted the psychologist Alfred Adler when he said:

Hope is the foundational quality of change.

I like this quote. It speaks a lot to the nature of a character I'm writing, a character who is filled with hope. But it's good for me, too, and those I know. Change will come, riding on the back of hope. I will be there to welcome it, for good or bad.

Cole Summer Writers Institute 2009

I love summer. The sun, the surf, the Cole Summer Writers Institute. It's all good.

For four years now I have been running a summer workshop for adolescent writers based out of my school. This year I have eight kids, although in years past I've had as many as fifteen (and as few as five), and they are wonderful! So creative, so energetic; they get me thinking again about writing (thank God!). It has been so long since I actually thought about writing- I'm not even talking about a full blown story here; I'm talking about a sketch or paragraph or a few sundry lines of prose- and each time I do rekindle the desire it feels like prying open a window that has been painted shut. It's scary, in some ways, to think about pulling up the tightly shut sills of my creativity, though, because I know how savage the rush of desire to write will be once I open the window. Yeah, I know, melodramatic, but not untrue. TO put it prosaically, I'll be torn to write and to ignore all other things. Which I would do.

So much for vacuuming and cutting the lawn.

But I have to accept the need to write because it's a part of me. I have to write when the calling comes and I can safely do it (read this part as the disclaimer that says I won't lose my job because I shirked my responsibilities it lieu of writing). And that is ultimately the struggle, to write when you can for as long as you can and damn the consequences. Sacrifice. Risk. Summer sun. Summer writing. It's all good again.

Choices

Life is about choices.

Do we take path A or path B? Do we pursue something or let it sit unattended? Do we devote or energies in one direction, or do we sit and hope that we can cover all directions at once?

I have been making lots of choices lately. It actually feels good, because my path gets really clear when I do this. Am I sure that the choices are the correct ones? Absolutely not, but I'm living them. Sometimes I get in binds, sure, but with each step I shrug off the doubt and fear that has plagued me my whole life. And I am glad. I don't want to live in limbo ever again.

And with that I move on, certain only in the fact that I have confidence in myself to do what is right at the moment, to accept what my gut tells me.

No one ever succeeded by playing it safe. With great risk comes great success (or monumental failure). Pray for the success and make sure you can live with the failure. The rest will sort itself out.

Media Arts Festival

My school held a Media Arts Festival last night to celebrate the work our students do in the field of media arts. I was asked to MC the event in my capacity as an educational technologist. Here's the speech in all of its glory:

Good evening and welcome to the first ever Voorheesville Media Arts Festival. My name is Brian Stumbaugh, and one of my many tasks here at the high school is to function as the educational technologist. This job affords me the opportunity to be in classrooms and to see the exceptionally fine work that our students are doing in the field of technology. So it is my great pleasure to be here tonight and to serve as Master of Ceremonies as we showcase our students' work in the field of media arts.

But first it is essential to grasp the idea of media arts. And to grasp the idea of media arts we must begin with the basic premise that the world is changing. These students face a much different workplace than that of their parents. It is a much faster, more competitive place, one that is filled with smart phones, text messages, and status updates. And with that changing world comes a changing school. The old, traditional methodologies are fading, and so are the tried and true projects. Students are losing engagement, lured by the draw of the faster paced, sexier digital world. In short, we are losing them.

So how do we bring them back? The answer is Media Arts. Media Arts represents a marriage of conventional art, research, and writing with the new and exciting world of technology, whether it be movie making, digital music creation, or digital storytelling, by blending these diverse and oftentimes cutting edge media with more time-honored educational approaches, we have the opportunity to connect with students on their own turf: the digital playground. The researcher and educational writer Marc Prensky describes today's kids as digital natives because they grew up with digital media (in fact, all of the students whose work we highlight tonight grew up in a world that always had the Internet!). We, the older generation, are simply digital immigrants, slowly dipping our toes in the technological world whipping by us at light speed. But smart immigrants don't let go of their past, so, being smart, we have to focus on the traditional skills of planning, research, and writing while we're all having fun hanging out on that digital playground.

And what do you hear on that playground? Names like Digital Storytelling, Stop Motion Animation, and Documentary Film Making have budged their way into the forefront of our educational lexicon, taking up places next to the traditional essay, research project, and term paper. Sometimes they even surpass those older forms in the scope and breadth of student engagement. Students are spending time on the computer with applications like Facebook, Twitter, Photoshop, and iMovie, and, as you will see tonight, they are doing more than just typing. They’re researching, creating, mixing, and filtering data; they’re collecting artifacts, writing copy, and storyboarding ideas. In short, they're building skills that they need to be competitive in this ever-changing global economy. Never before has the need for these skills been greater, and, as you will see tonight, our students are rising to the challenge.

Tech Video and the Visual Image

I was asked to produce a video for my school's annual "8th Grade Parent Orientation Night." It took a lot of time but was a fulfilling and invigorating process, and I'm glad I was able to strike off in this direction.

TED Speaking

I found this on Garr Reynolds's Presentation Zen website (found here).

Thanks to Tim Longhurst (The TED Commandments - rules every speaker needs to know) you can see the list in an easier to read format below:

1. Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick.
2. Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before.
3. Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion.
4. Thou Shalt Tell a Story.
5. Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy.
6. Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.
7. Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desperate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.
8. Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.
9. Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.
10. Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee.

These are great rules, hands down, and ones we should follow as we again mount the downward stairs to PowerPoint Hell (fifth ring, I believe). I may use this with my students, too. I mean, why not? The people on TED are pretty smart, after all!

The Friday Five on Monday

The Friday Five
May 1, 2009 (actually, May 4, 2009)

The next installment of The Friday Five is a day late, but not a dollar short! Check out these cool sites here, as well!

1. Flickr Color Selector (http://color.slightlyblue.com/): a very cool site that allows you to check out Creative Commons Licensed Photographs from Flickr, and then find photos by their colors and Rate Them! Very cool way to coordinate lots of free, high res photos.

2. Tag Galaxy (http://taggalaxy.de/) Probably the most interesting Flickr search engine I've seen. Simply type your tag (search criteria) in the box and Tag Galaxy goes into Flickr and builds a globe of related shots! You'll be hard pressed to find a more unique way to find your pics.



3. Why are text messages limited to 160 characters? (found here): Los Angeles Times article explains why your texts are limited.

4. Suprglu (http://suprglu.com/) A handy free tool that you can use to piece together all of the pieces of your web world. Great way to tie together RSS feeds, pictures from Flickr, and other web services all in one, convenient spot. Also a really easy way to develop your own web site, complete with all the multimedia stuff you will need to develop a class site. Try it for free.

5. Feedly (http://www.feedly.com/index.html). Like Suprglu, Feedly binds your online world into one really accessible start page. This is a Firefox extension, so you'll need to run that browser, but it's free, so why not give it a try. Oh, for thos asking, "Isn't this a lot like iGoogle, the answer is yes, but the difference is that by being a Firefox extension and not a website, Feedly is free to analyze what you browse; i.e. it gets a sense of what you like to look at and will funnel it onto your start page.

Friday's Five Geeky Tech Things

In the spirit of Web 2.0, I have decided to compile a list of five geeky tech items on occasional Fridays. The Friday Five is manageable list of five tech related items that allows me to get some interesting things out for folks to try. My goal is to find things that make life on the web easier and more enjoyable. The items on each list may be compiled thematically, or they may just be a hodgepodge of unrelated items. Here's the first one:

The Friday Five
(look em all up online here!)

1. Jing: Screencapture software for Windows and Mac that allows you to take a picture of whatever is on your desktop and save it to your computer. Jing also allows for the creation of screencasts (think mini movies) where you "film" whatever is happening on your screen (voice is included, too). Easy to use and fun.

2. Sharetabs: What a cool website, and perfect for educators. Sharetabs basically allows you to collect all of the links you want to collect in one convenient link. As their site says, "Add a list of links to the form below and submit it to get a single link to them all, conveniently displayed in tabs. Great for sharing in Email, IM, Twitter, or SMS." In fact, the link to all of these five items can be found at http://www.sharetabs.com/?friday_five_april_24. Great resource for teachers!

3. Geeky Science Papers you Need to Read: maybe a bit geeky, but interesting and free for the hardcore web folks or wannabes (no, I'm not thinking about myself, but if the shoe fits, right?)

4. 25 Places to Find Awesome Stock Photos, Free and Cheap: Want to include professional grade photos in your presentations or class materials? Worried about copyright or illegal use of intellectual property? Just want to find some cool photos? Here's the place to do it. Most sites are free, but some are inexpensive, and most allow their photos to be used in educational or non-commercial settings.

5. The Web in Numbers: Interesting Read about the rise of social media on Mashable. If you were ever interested in just how big Facebook, Twitter, and other sites are truly getting, then this is the site for you.


Enjoy!

The Constancy of Ideas

Let's talk turkey here. Life is driven by ideas: family, love, work, play. It is safe to say, in reality, that we are made up of the collected ideas we hold various degrees of faith in. We are artists, poets, thinkers, logicians, writers, speakers, etc. The ideas are self-generated as well as foist upon us by outside influences- good and bad. It's like a matrix, an inter-connected web of the perceptions or labels that are tagged to us. I have been thinking about this idea for a while now, having felt the pinch of perceptions formed by others about me and changing them, if possible. Or if not to change them, then to at least to recognize them and limit the power that they have.

But it is funny to recognize that there are perceptions of us that are completely divorced from the inner reality we all possess. So, say, I decide to go out and buy a motorcycle- hypothetically. The idea kind of flies in the face of the notions most people have of me: staid, thoughtful, stoic (I guess). Which is an interesting place to be, in the middle of a social experiment. I mean, we all change ourselves from time to time, right, break the mold and renew again. So it's a good thing, really, to try new things, if at the very least to keep people on their toes, and at the most to see and experience new elements of life.

And another thing to consider is that if you never change, people really do get sick of your amazing potential. And you might be sick of it yourself, too.

The Times Union Tech Blog

I am very excited! I have been asked to write a guest post for the Albany Times Union's Technology Blog, and am currently gathering the info I need for a run at the "big time." Dave Adkins, a regular contributor to the blog and a colleague (I presented with Dave at a seminar on Cyber Safety at Voorheesville High School last month), asked me to sub for him while he was away. This is both exciting and daunting at the same time.

I mean, what can I offer to the discussion that these techies (Dave, or should I refer to him as Dr. Adkins(?), has a PhD. from the State University in Information Science and is Director of IT for New York State United Teachers) haven't already discussed? What can I add that won't seem trivial or banal?

I suppose I will go from the perspective of a teacher, and simply rewrite the post I gave here about RSS feeds and my cell phone. The way I see it, that post is applicable to all interests and professions...we all want to be up on the latest trends in blogs, right? (Is my inner geek showing?) And, at the very least, it seems like a reasonable thing to write about from a teacher/techie angle. So problem solved, I guess. I'll let you know when the post comes out!

Welcome to Spring

Welcome to Spring. Finally. It's starting to get warmer, the grass is getting greener, and, despite the fact that my friends in California have taken great pains to rub it in incessantly about how warm and sunny it is on the left coast (mid 50's, biking at Big Sur, ugh..we still have snow banks), there is still a sense of New Englander/Puritan style optimism in the air here in New York. Something about Spring in the northeast, a sense of relief, the belief that winter has finally let up and we can have a life again...can come out of the cold and breathe once more.

I have come out of a long, cold winter, one filled with lots of doubt and a chilling sense of locked rigidity. But thaws happen, inevitably, and with the thaw, comes the new growth and new life of Spring. New shoots growing out of the old life, new possibilities from the frozen ground.

A life of hope and joy. Ah, the possibilities...

New Beginnings

Here's to hoping that this week will be better than the last. If tonight is any indication, I'm not so sure, but it's early...

Communication

Lately I've been enmeshed in lots of meetings at work, on lots of varied subjects, and have left those meetings with a great sense of being overwhelmed by the amount of information that has been tossed at me. Great gushing torrents of factoids barreling down the proverbial pike at me and then just settling, and I have to make some kind of sense of it all. It's downright disconcerting.

The thing that bothers me the most, though, is the fractured nature of the data being thrown at me. You get it full barrel in the noggin, and then you're on to the next meeting with a whole new set of facts. I've never been good at multi-tasking, so this should come as no surprise to those who know me that this type of life (the last week has been particularly odious--three different committees and normal departmental politics add up to headaches galore) doesn't suit me. I suppose I could make it in this one meeting per week and I'll see you next week world if there was follow through, but it just seems that some of the meetings I attend are so esoteric and convoluted in nature, or are just squeezed into a slot so we can say we're accountable, that I end up frazzled and frustrated, and the recovery time is so long that I'm often bitter and angry and not able to concentrate. Oh what I would do for follow-up of some kind. Anything: a call or email just to recap or rehash the meeting.

Now some people are good at this, but lately I've been noticing a change and a real withdrawing of communication: this makes it difficult to maintain enthusiasm for the project. Seems sometimes that others have lost interest, or are like me, so tapped out that we're like zombies dancing through the day. I promised that I would never let myself get there, so this is particularly frustrating.

Despite the Anne Tyler quote on the home page of this site, I really do have trouble with too many fractured elements of my life. Yes, I know that's how it goes sometimes, and as a professional I need to figure out how to handle it, but I get into trouble when all of my life seems like a shatterd mirror, complete with tiny shards of glass scattered about the floor. I would like consistency- at least with communication- but I'm not sure if that's too much to ask. I mean, really, can't I connect with anyone or anything in my life that welcomes the connection? And can sustain it over more than a meeting per week or two? Whiny? Probably. But I've spent too many meetings that serve as stages for people to hear their own voices so they can be said to have spoken up, or listening to others talk about the project at hand in abstract terms and never volunteer a new direction, only to be forced into silence for another week before I get the chance to speak again. Without communication, there is no growth after all.

Doesn't seem the best way to run things- whether it be a personal life or a professional one.

Art and the Common Man

The art was at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. I, by process of elimination, am the common man. And what a phenomenal day! I took my youngest daughter there today, our last day of vacation, and (believe it or not) she was actually excited about going. It's an hour drive from my house over Route 43 into Stephentown, NY, and then Willimastown, and, despite the iron gray day punctuated by bouts of snow squalls, it was still pretty scenic and enjoyable.

Once there, we took advantage of the free admission (yes, free from November through May), got some soup in the museum cafe to fight off the chill, and each availed ourselves of the five dollar self-guided audio tour devices. Then we strolled. Strolled through hard wood floored galleries of some of the finest art to be seen in the upstate NY/New England area (outside of Boston). From Renoir to Degas to Monet, the heavy hitter Impressionists are well represented, but there is also a very nice selection of American masters, as well. Pieces by artists like Remington, Sargent, and Winslow Homer are all available for viewing, and the special exhibit on Toulouse-Lautrec was colorful, bright, and my personal favorite. In fact, my personal favorite in the collection, T-L's "Waiting," seen above, is featured prominently as you enter the third floor gallery. I could go on, but I won't. Go to this museum if you haven't yet. It is well worth the trip.

And in this age of pixels and electronic paint, there is something very magical about being surrounded by hand made, authentic, non-digitized art. Not that there's anything wrong with "new," in fact you can get a heaping helping of it just down the road in North Adams at Mass MoCA, but there is truly something about the masters that make us all humble, or common, or connected. Standing in the presence of my favorite piece, I became contemplative and was moved. And my daughter was, too, but only when she was admiring Degas's "Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen." She loved the real silk bow and authentic muslin tutu, and was outraged at the critics who found the little model's body ugly and flat. I didn't even know she had a thing for sculpture before we got there, but, as we admired the collections's bronzes and marbles, I could see it in her eyes. I learned something about her today that I hadn't known before, which is really very cool. So I suppose that's another reason to go...the bonding over art. Go figure. I guess art has something to say to forty year olds and eleven year olds alike after all, even in this age of text messages and IM's. Which commenced as soon as we got in the car for the ride home, but, for the few hours that we walked amid beauty, it was all magic.

RSS Feeds and Your Cellphone

So in an effort to publish more, and to get into the blogging game full force, I have decided to incorporate RSS onto my blog using Feedburner. Now all people need to do is click the subscribe icon in the right column to get new posts sent directly to their newreader of choice, or they can simply sign up in the email box to have new content sent right to their inbox!

Not that I'm fantasizing about hordes of people reading my blog, but I guess I should know how to do this in case I have to teach people how to do it. And what a great tool for teachers! Utilizing a blog as a digital repository of class materials (PowerPoints, .pdf's, class notes, etc.), the RSS feed is a way to inform students when new material is online for them to look at. Of course, most high schoolers don't check their email, so the dilemna is to find a way to deliver the content right to where the students will actually see it: their phones.

So I did some research, and lo and behold I found Web-Alerts. Simple to use, all you need to do is enter the URL of the site you would like to follow (http://brianstumbaugh.net/blog/, for example) and Web-Alerts will look up the feed for the site. Once it finds it, all you need to do is enter your cell number and- BAM!- you get text message alerts right on your phone.

A similar service is Pingie, a very similar set up. Pingie is easier, and allows for a quicker application process, but the results are the same. Once you apply and set up a free account, you can direct any feeds you want to follow right to your phone. Very cool, and easy as an option for students. Imagine having all of them anxiously awaiting your next text...dizzy with the expectations of unbridled learning! It boggles the mind.

Oh, but be careful, normal text messaging rates apply, so unless you have unlimited texting, this could get expensive. And since a growing number of teens have smartphones that have free RSS reader apps, this might seem a bit unnecessary. But there are some out there who don't have the fancy do-hickeys, but they just about all have cell phones. Why not bring school to that world?

Technology Meets Saint Valentine

I'm a romantic. I admit it. I write poetry, appreciate a good ballad, and can be persuaded to watch a good love story if it's enmeshed in the glow of good writing. But I also love technology, as anyone who spends any time with me understands, so it really was inevitable that I would come across the unholy union of the two at some point as we approached this Saint valentine's Day.

My brush with cyber-cupid came in the form of an electronic valentine sent to me, remarkably, by my dentist. Now, I like my dentist, but I didn't get him anything, and since we see each other on a bi-annual basis, unless of course he's on vacation at either of the two points during the year I happen to be on his office, I didn't feel a card of any kind was necessary. So imagine my surprise to see a little red and pink animated gif sitting in my inbox along with an innocuous link. A quick click and I was transported to the larger e-card, complete with some cheesy midi music to complete the tableau. The standard message was emblazoned across the red heart, smaller pink hearts floating around their bigger, redder brethren.

I don't want to appear ungrateful. The gesture is well taken, especially in this age of suspect customer service and faltering brand loyalty. But viewing the card forced me to really look at the contradictory ideas contained within. Valentines are supposed to be heartfelt messages reserved, in theory, for the people that really matter to you. The effort put in to creating the message, whether in a homemade card or in the thoughtful words penned inside a store bought Hallmark, are the measures of the sincerity. Just remembering to send a valentine for some of us is a testament of our depth of emotion. But email is just so easy, and e-cards are especially easy. You never even have to get up from the couch: just a few taps and clicks and there you go: instant sentiment.

I just think that Cupid looks better with his wings, bow and arrow, and toga. The image of a cherub with a laptop leaves me cold.

Valentine's Day

Should I Facebook?

Well, should I?

The social implications are there. A cute old friend, who happens to be my first girlfriend (made out with her on the steps of the Ravena Elementary School), invited me to join her Facebook, as has my ex-wife (not sure how that will play out- not sure I'll be in on the friend talk). The old friend is a biologist in Europe, so I'm intrigued. Just not sure what to do here.

I have fought against it so hard- not sure why, either- but it must have soemthing to do with the fact that my students are all over the site.

Maybe inspiration will strike soon.

I like that I can network and get my work out there, though.

Finn and the Politics of Narrative License

Just finished Jon Clinch's excellent debut novel, Finn. Wow...what a dark ride! Clinch takes the story of minor but memorable character Pap Finn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and fleshes out his back story in vivid and sometimes brutal style. Finn is a nasty, mean, racist, whiskey swilling, river man that happens to have a thing for black women. The beauty of the novel is that it is faithful to Pap's appearances in the Twain novel, but recasts his actions in the light of the new and fascinating revelations exposed in the text.

Perhaps the most revelatory thing about the novel is that Clinch asserts, based on some exhaustive research in the current body of Twain literary scholarship, that Huck is bi-racial. Which leads me to the politics of narrative license. I happen to love the idea of taking an established classic and turning it on its head, a la Grendel in John Gardner's modern take on Beowulf. Even the Coen Brothers' take on The Odyssey in their film O 'Brother Where Art Thou? serves to give the text new chops. But this method is not without its detractors. Apparently, Clinch has received some negative comments from Twain purists, which is ind of sad. No text is sacrosanct. No text is beyond revision. You'd think most people would get that. I think the thing that makes this particular novel so compelling is the concept of unreliability as seen in the boy narrator of the older text. Huck is a liar, no doubt, so it goes to follow that some of his assertions would be lies, too, no? Clinch just takes the idea and runs with it; and what a wild dash it is. Not for the faint hearted, at all, but worth the time if you love Huck, this book will do the most important thing a book can hope to do: get you thinking.

Privacy and Cyberspace: The Facebook Saga

Facebook: love it or leave it. Let me fill you in. We, like many other public schools in New York State, are staring down the barrel at record cuts in state and federal funding, thereby leaving the powers that be with the apparently inevitable decision to cut staff. News of the bloodletting was released in sketchy terms at the Board of Education meeting last Monday. Word has started to seep out to the community, and the main ooze point is the student body themselves.

There's nothing new about students protesting the decisions made by school administrations, in fact the students in my school are just continuing a fine, patriotic tradition of civil outcry and disobedience by voicing their displeasure in a very public way. It's just that the public venue has changed from sit-ins to plug-ins. Enter Facebook, the social media networking site extraordinaire. Instead of gathering in Nichols park to decry the state of affairs at the school, or staging a non-violent protest in the principal's office, they did what their generation does best (and, apparently, what the Obama administration in Washington has figured out, as well): they went online.

Students from one particularly popular English teacher's classes have started a blog on Facebook to rally support for their beleaguered instructor, and the posts have been anything but dispassionate. Most of the posts have been in plain support of my colleague, extolling her virtues and appealing to the more logical natures of the Board of Education. In fact, some students have even taken to deciding which teachers in the building they would rather have fired. Disgruntled activists, social critics, or immature kids just venting about their mean high school teachers? You be the judge: click here to view the blog.

I have a few thoughts on this. The teacher in question is a colleague of mine and a member of my department, which makes this a particularly emotional topic for me. I suppose I admire the students for their energy and outrage. Over the last few weeks I've met with every administrator in the building- to no avail- and I half feel like posting a message of support on their board. But I won't. Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, and all of the other social networking sites use their global openness as their draw: all are welcome, and, unless specifically blocked (like Facebook personal pages), all can see. I have to believe that the students who supported their teacher with genuine words of support were happy to have their words out there for the world to see. The righteous indignation of youth can overlook nuances and glaring social realities when those things threaten their way of life. And good for them for their indignation and fire: we all should have more of that. Maybe we all once did.

But the ones that took pot shots at teachers and staff members- sometimes downright nasty shots at that- apparently either were comfortable hiding in the illusory cozy nest that sites like Facebook create, or felt empowered by that same righteous indignation that fueled the others to level a blow at the perceived dead weight within the system. But their attacks, being hidden behind the wall of a social media site, were just that: cowardly attacks on people's lives and reputations. Not unlike Juicy Campus, these attacks were intended to hurt people, all wrapped up behind the guise of helping another. Which is typical for kids, I know, but shouldn't be accepted. And I suppose I need to confront my own presence on the list and what it made me feel. So many of this generation have bought into the digital lullaby of anonymity. But the thing they don't realize is that the adults, the over forty's out there, can see them, do see them, and will someday make judgments about their inherent worth by rendering judgments about their employability, for starts.

Until this generation realizes that the cyber world is not a closed cocoon for their venting, until they begin to feel the true ramifications of their cyber-flaming, then they will never realize why adults will lose respect for them, will judge them, and will hold them accountable for what they say online.

But I suppose at that age they won't care. At eighteen, did I?

RIP John Updike

Sad and sorry news today: John Updike has died at 76. I loved John Updike. He was one of those writers whose work was appealing because it was, on many levels, true. Even though it was older stuff, and his most famous works- the four novel "Rabbit" series- were written in the 60's, 70's and 80's, he still held a freshness that was very appealing. He was unabashedly candid, too, when it came to sex. You always felt like you were getting away with something reading one of his novels, albeit something classy and literary while sexy, too.

For years I tried to figure out how to include Updike in my AP English classes, to no avail. It was his rampant use of sexuality that just did me in. I couldn't get by it, which is ironic. It was this prudishness that his work sought to fight. He probably would have smirked at it and just went on doing what he did best- writing it all down. Another master down...

Perfection Wasted

And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market --
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
their tears confused with their diamond earrings,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories
packed in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That's it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren't the same.

John Updike

Hail to the Chief!

An excerpt from today's historic speech:

"America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back, nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations."

God I'm proud of the country, and scared for Obama, and scared for us all at the same time. Hail to the chief.

You Know You're Old When...

...you have an hour-long conversation with a former student who is now in law school and who just found out he was just published in his school's law review for a four page summary of a case that the California Supreme Court is hearing right now! And then you find out he's submitting a 38 page article to the same magazine. And then you realize it's been six years since he graduated and at that the most he would write as a senior was less than five pages. Oh, how the world changes! I guess it makes me happy to know that he's doing well, but boy do I feel old. The guy on the left is how I feel now :)

Congratulations, Matt! I always knew you were a writer, and I only had to stomp on your Sparknotes once or twice to get you thinking!

It was so nice to hear from him. As teachers it really does you good to keep in touch with the kids that really touch your heart. And, on the purely practical side, you never know when you'll need a good lawyer!

Writing in the Age of Distraction

Cory Doctorow's article, found at http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2009/01/cory-doctorow-writing-in-age-of.html, is a pretty succinct, accurate look at the distractions that inhabit our electronic, plugged in, connected geographies. I can't help but agree with his take on it all. Instead of trying to make the world go away (increasingly more difficult with Twitter- that site's damn addictive!), his advice of dedicating yourself to twenty undisturbed minutes a day is pretty solid. We all can find twenty minutes, right? And twenty minutes of writing is just about as good as any twenty minutes you'll find in life...and I did say just about as good!

Here's to a great weekend filled with twenty minutes of bliss every day!

Twitter

Yeah, so it's late and I just signed up for Twitter. I'm such a dork!

http://twitter.com/brianstumbaugh

Psyched!

I'm psyched because, yes, once again I have changed a website design. This time it's the TechTimes website that I produce for my school. I basically changed it from an old fashioned, text dominated site to a web 2.0, graphically oriented site. In the process, I tried to increase the accessibility features. I broke a long list of links down and put them on grouped pages (tools, documents, blog, etc.) and minimized the text that- honestly- people weren't reading. I've included a thumbnail here, the same one I picked for my webdocs page (self promotion at its best).

I also had to cut down the size of the background image to optimize load times, and had to utilize a java script to work around the fact that older Internet Explorer versions wouldn't show my transparent .pngs correctly. Lots of work, for sure, but I'm very pleased with the results.

Yeah, it's my geekiness on display, I know. But it's still pretty cool.