EdTechGeek

Take videos on YouTube with you!

2009-02-06T20:03:00.000-08:00

Have you ever watched a video on YouTube and wished you could view it on your blocked school-site computer? How cool it would be to be able to download an educationally relevant video, put it on a flash drive and show it the day to your students in class? Well now you can! Follow the directions on this site:

http://pwnyoutube.com

... and you'll be able to turn those YouTube videos into files that will play on your computer. The files can get pretty big, so make sure you have enough space on that flash drive to hold all of your new video treasures!

Enjoy!

At SDCOE for training

2009-02-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

I'm currently attending a two day training about how to effectively use technology to support literacy. I love going to sessions like this and ALWAYS get something out of them. I'm getting lots of great tech nuggets and am capturing the URLs and ideas on a Google Doc. (http://docs.google.com) This way I can later evaluate at a deeper level things that I'm learning in this session. Often times I'll make connections and come up with ideas that I didn't think of while actually in the session. There's that "Reflective" thing going on again! :)

Started Teaching Again

2009-01-28T16:41:00.000-08:00

A new semester has begun. Last week I began yet another semester of ED 422. I look forward to the class: There's always something to share, to teach, to learn! Each semester can be a very enriching experience. And away we go doing the geeky-ed-techy thingy!!!

Photos and PDFs

2008-02-27T09:51:00.000-08:00

A couple online applications for you today:

Snipshot is a website that will allow you to do some simple photo editing. It's online and allows you to save your edited work to your desktop. Cool!

PDF Online allows you to create PDFs from various file formats.

-MS Word (DOC | RTF)
-MS PowerPoint (PPT)
-MS Publisher (PUB)
-MS Excel (XLS)
-HTML (MHT)
-Text (TXT)

JPG , GIF,
TIFF, BMP
PNG, EMF,
WMF

Cool!

Zoho

2008-02-06T18:57:00.001-08:00

I recently found out about a new online resource at zoho.com. It's a site that has a lot of online apps, most of them for FREE! I've been searching for something that helps students and teachers collaborate online in various ways. The suite of apps on Google Docs is not bad, but I've had trouble signing people up to them. This may be another cool alternative.

Goo Gone

2007-12-17T09:52:00.000-08:00

I love it when someone comes to me with a problem that I can help them with. Must be the "wanna fixit" part of my personality. You know, the one that gets you into trouble when people just want you to listen ... but that's another story.

Last week my secretary made a "grr" sound while her head was buried in the supply cabinet. Knowing that "grr" usually indicated a respectable level of frustration, I inquired "wassup?"

Apparently there was a fair amount of unruly sticky goop in the cabinet that was refusing to be removed. I said "Ahh! I have just what you need! I'll bring some Goo Gone from home. It removes sticky stuff. Works like a charm!"

Today I brought a bottle of Goo Gone to the office and a little while later I heard a "Wow, this stuff is like a miracle!" coming from the area that "grr" came from last week. I quietly and smugly smiled.

I wish technology were more often as dependable. Here's a scene that happens all too often: Someone comes to me with a problem, I propose a technology based solution (Ah! Try this calendar, or wiki, or mail list, or document creator, etc.) and even go so far to demonstrate it ... and then it fails in some way. Instead of feeling like the Techno Saviour replete with flowing red cape, I feel more like a door to door used vacuum cleaner salesman trying to hock his wares.

People "tsk tsk", smile politely and dismiss my strategy as "too complicated" or "not something they are interested in ... Not sure why tech stuff so often fails at precisely the moment that I place high hopes of getting that "Wow, this stuff is like a miracle" response. Gremlins, unreasonable expectations?

Grrr ...

Does anyone know of some Tech Gremlin Goo Gone?

MediaMax

2007-04-07T12:11:00.000-07:00

Although there are some restrictions for the FREE account, 25GB of online storage is pretty cool! Check it out here:

http://www.mediamax.com

What should we be teaching?

2007-03-16T11:40:00.000-07:00

There exists a plethora of opinions and theories on what we should be teaching in school. What should we teach our kids? These students will someday grow up and need to fend for themselves and run the country! Most people agree on the need to teach 'em math, reading, science, history, and now even some technology skills.

This article discusses some areas that are not often considered in the "formal" education realm. Personal Finance. Communication. Social Skills. Sales. Time Management.

Take a read at the article, come back here and let me know what you think.

I'm Back!

2007-03-13T11:48:00.000-07:00

Actually I've been back from our Europe trip for quite sometime, but simply didn't post. It's one of "those" things y'know? Something you know that you "ought" to be doing, but kept skipping for one reason or another ... again and again. Like exercising, eating right, flossing, changing your oil, or pulling the weeds out of your yard. It you skip doing them only a little, no biggy. But if you skip it chronically, people notice and things can go ... bad.

So I'm back. I'll do my best to keep current. Just like exercising and flossing, it's easy to stop, but just as easy to get back going again.

So with no further delay, my current post:

What in the World of Education, Technology or General Geekiness has caught my attention at this time?

PDFs

Portable Document Format documents are a double edged sword. They are great because any computer can read them. Mac or PC. You only need to download FREE software (Adobe Reader) to read a PDF. The bad thing about PDFs is that, unless you have specialized ($) software you can't make one or edit one.

What I found:

Here is a link to a bunch of software that will help you with your PDF creation woes.

Here's another option PrimoPDF. Basically it acts like a printer. You choose it like a printer from your computer. When you "print" however, it doesn't come out of your printer, but instead creates a PDF. Most Mac applications have been doing this, built in, for years.

Another solution is PDFOnline. The concept here is to upload a document (Word, etc.) and they will email you the PDF version. Pretty cool!

Heading Out To Europe

2006-05-17T16:23:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since my last post. Things have been extemely BUSY. I've had SO many problems with technology (both personal, at work and at school) in the last few months. It's been frustrating and draining. I've found myself feeling exhausted daily. My concentration is poor, my left eye has been twitching for weeks and I often have headaches.

Time to get away.

Sandy and I are flying out tomorrow for a LONG overdue trip. We'll be traveling around France and Spain for the next 2 weeks. We're going on a LIGHT travel trip. We're taking small travel rolly luggage that converts to backpacks. No need to check luggage. We're taking minimal clothing and will be doing laundry along the way.

We'll be in Paris for a few days, then travel to the Loire Valley. Visit Normandy and Mont St. Michel. After a week in France we'll fly to Madrid. We'll travel to Toledo and Sevilla. The heaviest luxury item I'm brining and refuse to leave home is ... anyone care to guess? My SLR digital camera. Other than that, no palm, no computer, no cell phones, and no USB thumb drives! Ahh! We will be brining our GPS (of course!)

This will be a chance for me to unplug and get off the grid. I really need to get away for a bit and recharge.

We'll be doing "some" recording and have already set it up so that we'll still be delivering 2 Monday podcacher shows (thanks to my bro-in-law Steve).

I'll be bringing my harmonica to brush up on my skills.

Although there'll be LOTS to do when I get back (there always is), for now it's time to say ciao!

In and out of whack ...

2006-04-19T07:59:00.000-07:00

There are times when I absolutely HATE technology. I get so frustrated with it sometimes, that it's the best word to describe how I feel about it.

Many people who know me personally know that I'm a self confessed geek.

Monday night I went to my old church to rehearse with the old band to play for this Sunday. The audio equipment there is in bad shape. A loud, LOUD static hiss shows up intermittently. One of the amps is completely broken and no one has replaced it. Bummer. Sandy brought a camera to take pictures of our rehearsal, but the battery was dead. Bummer.

I teach an Educational Technology course at Cal State University, San Marcos. The other night when I was teaching:
Couldn't see a web page correctly.
Couldn't download files. Attempted over a half dozen strategies.
Could not hear audio on a movie file on my laptop when it has worked fine in the past. Later that night, after class, when I got home, I tried the same movie and it worked fine.
Word locked up, had to re-boot.
Video wouldn't show in class at the time I needed it. Later the same system showed video just fine.

Part of my frustration while teaching (and have technology fail) is the feeling that I'm trying to impress upon my students the importance and power that technology can have in education. Instead, I get the sense that some of my students are making a mental note ... "Reminder: don't use technology in a classroom, it fails, you can't get the lesson done and you look like an idiot."

My work computer is, to sum up, out of whack. My Palm is out of whack. Sometimes, but fortunately not too often, my Macs get out of whack. Weird things that I can't explain. Gremlins, someone with a voodoo doll of my electronic equipment sticking pins in it. Who knows.

Now I'm back from a short vaction. My computer has been re-imaged and other things are now out of whack. I just tried to use a simple USB flash drive to read a Word document. My computer (Windows XP) would not recognize the flash drive. I was told by my tech that I should re-boot the computer to see the drive. How absurd is that? To open a file that would take 20 seconds I have to do through a 5 minute reboot? I hate when my tech stuff is out of whack. Why can't they get in whack? What will it take to get them back in whack so I can get to work?

Just had a new car alarm installed and the proximity sensor is out of whack. I'll have to take it in again to have it adjusted / fixed.

Sniffles and Coughs

2006-03-22T08:55:00.000-08:00

Sick at work today with a cold. I took yesterday off (EUHSD) work, but got myself bolstered enough to teach (CSUSM) last night. My students this semester are great. I enjoy working with them.

At work today, I'm also bolstered with "comfort" meds. I know that colds just need to work themselves out, but having luxuries like Dayquil is a nice, nice help.

The Tech Use Plan is pretty solid, stable and mostly complete. I'm waiting on some material from the director of staff development and the entire document will be ready to be shipped to the State for approval. Wahoo!

As of last night's teaching, I have a little break on certain obligations for a bit. As you've read in a previoius post, my week can get pretty full, pretty fast. CSUSM will be on spring break for a week and we are not hosting / leading our growth group for 2 weeks. This frees up quite a bit of time. Nice. I haven't had that in a while. Time for some reading, watching TV with Sandy, playing the guitar or didge, playing xbox (the new game at the moment is Burnout Revenge, a driving game). Things will come into full swing at full steam soon enough.

A few days ago I had the "itch" to shoot (photography). Has that ever happened to you? You just want to create? You want to produce and be creative, to stretch your imagination in search of inspiration? Well I had the bug. It was too cold and rainy to go drive somewhere to fill my photo-shooting needs, so I went out to our backyard and shot pics there. The whole "set" is here:

http://tinyurl.com/znaf2

.

Connections

2006-03-17T13:42:00.000-08:00

One of the great things about the Internet is how small it makes the world. It is because of this virtual global community that we hear from our listeners from Denmark, South Africa, the UK, Australia and all over the US. It's because of these electronic connections that we are able to establish human connections with real people in real places.

I have been in contact with a geocacher in Washington (Glenn). He's also happens to be an educator (Principal and Director of Tech). He's a Christian and a geek. Sound familiar. I will have the pleasure of meeting him face to face this summer since he and I (and many other people) are organizing a geocaching extravanganza for a national education conference (NECC).

No suprise that he has a blog. http://peptechtalk.blogspot.com/ I've been reading his blog for awhile and today I mined a nugget. He pointed me to a website called ProtoPage. You've got to check this out. It's a "start" page. I think I'll be converting this to my default home page soon. Very cool. Give yourself some time to explore.

Disappointment at PS

2006-03-11T11:17:00.000-08:00

Blogging from Palm Springs. I'm sitting here on a wireless network that is VERY slow. Painfully slow. Sometimes you hit a hyperlink, or "submit" button and just wait. And wait. Then you might get a screen that says that your request has "timed out".

Yesterday Sandy spent a good deal of time taking down coordinates for about a dozen "conference" specific caches. Last night after dinner we went back to our hotel room and worked for quite a while to set up for the next day. We took the coordinates, changed the names and input them into the computer. We then downloaded all the coordinates (about a dozen) into over 20 GPS units that Garmin had loaned us. Sandy prepared the handouts and some "signs" for the classroom. I prepared all the containers with disclaimers and logbooks. This morning we got up extra early (VERY difficult) to get a "to go" breakfast and then hide the cache containers all around the convention center. As we hid the last cache ... it began to rain. It then started to come down pretty hard. I went to the presentation room and began to plan for a modified version of the session: Plan B. I started the session, but there were less that a dozen people there. 8:00am on a rainy Saturday is a tough time to teach. I found out that they had originally printed my start time at 1:00pm so I think that some people may have not caught the change in start time. I was disappointed in my delivery. I question how effective I was. I was disappointed that it rained and we couldn't go out and find the caches that we had work SO hard to set up. I was disappointed that more people didn't show up and that my session was poorly attended.

Later, I was filmed for WestEd for a live webcast that will also be archived.

CUE 2006

2006-03-06T09:03:00.000-08:00

Sandy and I are headed out this Weds night to Palm Springs for a few days for the CUE conference (www.cue.org). I always look forward to this conference each year, partially because of the new things I learn, but partially because of the people I meet. I get to meet some new contacts as well as catch up with old friends.

This year I'll be presenting a short session on geocaching in education. Sandy and I will be hiding some "conference specific" caches for teachers to find. My hope is to introduce teacher to the concept of geocaching and discuss the potential applications in education.

Sandy and I will be bringing our bikes this time in hopes of doing a some bike-seeing on our time off. We may get a chance to visit Moorten Gardens a VERY small, but pretty cool private cactus garden in PS.

Speaking of friends, I just got more emails and pictures from one of my good friends (Pancho) from his vacation. He an his wife just got back from a trip to the UK. There are times that the wonders of technology are just pretty darned cool. Panch' had a PocketPC and someway (I'm assuming wireless) of connecting to the Internet while out on the road and writing email. He would write me from various places including a train. One memorable point was when Panch' was riding on a train and watching the snowy landscape fly by. He described that he was listening to "Bohemian Rhaspsody" (they had just seen a Broadway play called "We Will Rock You"). On my side of the world I went over to the office iMac and started playing the same song. I wrote him back that after over 20 years of time from High School so long ago, there was still a connection. Cool.

I took Saldy out for his birthday dinner the other night. We went to a place called Rodo Viva in Temecula. It's a Brazilian barbecue restaurant. The unique feature of this place is that the waiters will bring you these "swords" (skewers) with barbecued (nicely seasoned) meat. There is also a small cylindrical object (wood) about the size of a salt shaker that is painted with red on one end, green on the other, and yellow in the middle. They tell you to turn the thing with green on to if you want more meat, red on top if you want to stop, and set it on it's side if you're done. Dinner is one price ($25) and all you can eat. The meat is SO good, but after awhile you feel like you're going to pop. Whooo! I got a chance to chat with Saldy for a bit (unfortunately not something I'm able to do often anymore) and found out what was going on with him.

Stress Management

2006-03-03T15:00:00.000-08:00

Not sure if this actually occurred, but it made me feel good.

A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked, "How heavy is this glass of water?" Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g. The lecturer replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it. "If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance. "In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."
He continued, "And that's the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on. As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden. So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you're carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can. Relax; pick them up later after you've rested. Life is short, enjoy it!” And then he shared some ways of dealing with the burdens of life:

* Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.
* Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.
* Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
* Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled by their maker.
* If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
* If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
* Never buy a car you can't push.
* Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won't have a leg to stand on.
* Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
* Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.
* The second mouse gets the cheese.
* When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
* Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.
* You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.
* Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.
* We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.
"A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour."

LED Throwies

2006-02-18T09:16:00.000-08:00

Science and art combined again.

Link

Things are busy

2006-02-17T13:10:00.000-08:00

Things are pretty busy right now. It feels like I haven't had any time off, that's probably because I haven't. For the last several weeks, it's been work, work, work. Sandy and I try to get up early to run / excercise. We know it's good for us, so we try to discipline ourselves to do it. It's tough though. Neither of us are morning people (we are very compatible here!) and at this time of year, it's COLD! I know we shouldn't complain, there are other parts of the world that are actually freezing, but being a California guy, having to run all bundled up feel unnatural.

After we get home, I shower and dress and head off to work. Right now I'm not enjoying my job. There is a major project looming over my head, and I'm finding it difficult to get motivated about it.

When I get home from work, there is usually more work to do. I'll usually have a brisk dinner with Sandy and then hit the work. Monday nights I prep to lead the Growth Group that actually happens on Weds night. Prepping can (and usually does) take several hours. I not only prep on facilitating the discussion of the sermon, but I also prep to lead worship. I'll choose 3 songs, and make sure that I've got them "wired". This usually take about an hour (for the worship prep part) and is usually the only hour I really get to "practice" on the guitar. One hour a week ... The whole prep take me to about 9:30 or 10:00, and it's time to go to sleep.

Tuesday: Workout, work, go to CSUSM to teach. This take me to about 9:00. Go home, eat dinner, sleep.

Weds: Workout, work, go home, eat, lead Growth Group. Our guests usually leave around 9:30 to 10:00. Sleep.

Thurs: Prep for CSUSM. This takes at least 4 hours. Last night, I spent about 5 hours prepping and still didn't get done. More to do tonight.

Fri: Get home from work, eat, work, sleep.

The last several weekends, have been: work all day, sleep, work church, record pocacher, sleep.

Then the week starts all over again ...

Ug

Why?

2006-02-11T20:22:00.000-08:00

This is ultra retro, but I'm still not sure why you'd want to do this ...

Article

Pessimism

2006-02-10T08:01:00.000-08:00

"(some) Men (people) are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult." - Samuel Johnson

I met someone the other day who embodied this quote. I was sitting with a group of people and almost everything that came out of this person's mouth was negative. I didn't hear a positve comment once, not once. This person was a teacher and had negative things to say about the school, the district, the government, admistration, fellow teachers, and students. I thought, whose left? Some other people made an attempt to suggest positive alternatives and strategies, but this teacher's negative perception perevented them from seeing anything but obstacles. This teacher didn't really want to DO anything about it, they must've felt some level of comfot wallowing in despair and sharing it with others. The sad thing was that this person was SO young, maybe just a few years in the classroom, not the typical burned out teacher who was ready to retire. I can only the imagine the infection this teacher might spread at a faculty lunchroom. Why is this person teaching?

The next Aibo?:

2006-02-09T15:09:00.000-08:00

Sony's out of the robot business, but Ugobe is ready to take over. Pleo, its robotic Camarasaurus dinosaur, is loaded with 38 touch, light and sound sensors that let him find his way around and respond to his human masters (he can also understand speech). Like Aibo, Pleo learns as he goes. When Pleo's creator picked him up, he said of the poodle-size creature: "It's the first time he's been picked up, so he's scared. The next time he'll be used to it."

And like a real baby, Pleo starts life stupid and cranky. He takes a long time figuring out how to move around, and if you don't play with him, he sulks and looks depressed. I'm not sure I have the time and patience to raise my own Pleo. But maybe if a friend gets one, I can be his uncle. Pleo will be cheap, selling for about $200 when he comes out for Christmas. And while Sony prosecuted fans who tried to hack Aibo, Ugobe invites customers to mod its bot.

The iPod Nano drops to 1 gig

2006-02-08T16:01:00.000-08:00

An article at Engadget announced that Apple has quietly created a smaller, less expensive version of the popular MP3 player.

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The End Of An Era

2006-02-06T15:28:00.000-08:00

Jan 27 2006 STOP The end of an era STOP few notice STOP

Article

On May, 24, 1844 the first telegram ever was sent by Samuel L. Morse. Sent from Washington to Baltimore, the message read, "what hath God wrought."

Over the next few decades, telegraphs invented by Morse and his assistant, Alfred Vail, where deployed around the nation and around the world. The first Transatlantic Telegraph cable was succesfully completed on July 27, 1866.

In 1892, Thomas Edison was awarded a patent for the first two-way telegraph.

Fast forward through the next century. Telegrams were the primary means of non-verbal, instant communications across distances. Newspapers were named "telegram" and "telegraph." Foreign correspondents described the ravages of battle. Students off at college wired their parents with news of their safe arrival. Invitations were delivered, deals were struck, people fell in and out of love. Geographically distant cousins sent their best wishes to wedding parties they could not attend.

Telegrams were used to announce the first flight by the Wright Brothers in 1903 and the start of World War I. During World War II, the sight of a Western Union courier was dreaded because the War Department, the precursor to the Department of Defense, used the company to notify families of the death of their loved ones serving in the military.

Telegrams were always faster than letters.

Then, long-distance phone calls got cheaper. In what has to be the peak of irony, these calls became less expensive because of the breakup of a company with an initial that stood for "telegraph." I am talking about AT&T, which in an incarnation that stood firm for most of the 20th century, had the formal corporate name of American Telephone & Telegraph.

On January 27 2006, the first Internet fell silent forever. What was, at one time, considered the most cutting edge technology imagineable, has now been rendered obsolete. Imagine where we will be 62 years from now ...

RIP STOP

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The 10th Planet???

2006-02-01T15:26:00.000-08:00

News: There is an object out there that is larger than Pluto and is further out. It orbits the sun. (but so does a lot of other space "debris") Is it the 10th planet? Is Pluto a planet?

Read the Article

The Tunnel

2006-01-27T12:36:00.000-08:00

Hey, San Diego made international news!

Read Story

Things are rolling ...

2006-01-24T08:08:00.000-08:00

How cool is it to not be sick? Very cool. Being sick sucks. I know that I don't have to tell you that, you've all been there. I'm not sure why it was such an annoyance this time. Maybe it's because I haven't been sick in a long, long time. Maybe it's because my annoyance began right at the begnning of my 3 day weekend. Maybe it's because things are rolling now and it's very inconvenient to get sick. The bummer now is that Sandy is sick. She doesn't have the same, flu, temperature, fever thing that I had, but instead has a nast cough and is sneezy. Ug. I'm still hanging on to a cough that won't go away and is a minor annoyance. In the big scheme of things, it's an annoyance. I am a bit uncomfortable, but I can still work and still do things. I can only imagine (and wouldn't want to) the health situations that certain people must deal daily that are far more than an annoyance. I think about all the people with truly debilitating and sometimes terminal conditions and feel blessed that all I have to deal with is a cough.

Growth Group has started up again (actually tomorrow night will be the 3rd week already). This should be a good quarter. We had 2 more couples join, so that brings our numbers up to a total of 12 people. We've already planned our service project as well as the social. The social will be (what else?) a trip to go geocaching after church one day. That should be fun.

Tonight will be the 2nd week for my CSUSM class. I'm looking forward to this semester. I'm teaching in a PC lab this time (last semester I was in the Mac lab) and it's large and oddly shaped for teaching. I have several enthusiastic students and I'm looking forward to learning from them and teaching them this semester. I "think" I have a total of 22 students at the time of this writing. Disappointingly, many students did not turn in their assignments on time (last night) and will be marked late for their first assignments. I hope this is not a continuing trend for the semester. Sometimes the beginning of the semester can start off bumpy as students are getting used to the tools ...

Sick At Home

2006-01-14T20:20:00.000-08:00

Ug. I hate being sick. Friday morning I woke up with a cough. My secretary and one of the techs at work has had a cough for the last several weeks. Also my boss just got back from taking several days off because she was sick. The whole time, for the last several weeks I was doing really well. I wasn't sick at all. I don't get sick that often anymore. That's one of the side benefits of having been in the classroom for 12 years; a bullet-proof, cast-iron immune system ... almost. I remember my first few years of teaching, snffles almost all the time. Kids coming in bringing me the most exotic strains of bacteria and viruses. The really unusual one were delivered right after Christmas and Spring break or Summer when the student had the opportunity to travel and pick up stuff we don't have at home. I've been doing pretty well, but the last few days has not been status quo. I've been running and temp and don't feel like doing anything. I don't want to get on the comptuer (yet here I am), I don't want to play xbox, I don't want to watch DVDs. As I said, Ug.

We cancelled the game night we were going to host here at our house. I know that Sandy was really looking forward to it. So was I. I was also looking forward to this weekend off (3 days) to rest, recupe and prep for a busy year. It's a good thing I have 3 days.

ED 422 starts on Tues night. I think I'll be recording the audio from that first night because there is so much that we go over. I'm looking forward to another great semester with 422.

January 6th

2006-01-06T08:16:00.000-08:00

Did you know that January 6th is when (some) Catholics and Christians traditionally observe the arrival of the Three Wise Men (Three Kings)? It is also the 12th day of Christmas (as in the infamous 12 days of Christmas)! The Feast of the Epiphany. When I was growing up, our family would treat this as the last day of Christmas. We'd keep decorations (the aluminum Christmas tree, the electric candles, and the nativity scene) up until then.

Tiny URL

2006-01-05T14:14:00.000-08:00

In case I haven't posted on this site:

Have you ever seen an internet URL addres that was horribly long? Like this:

http://www.happynews.com/news/142006/missouri-researchers-find-largest-prime-number.htm

Nasty.

The problem with really long URL addresses is that they sometimes get "chopped off" or separated, especially when you paste them into an email. Then the person you send it to only gets part of the URL and they wonder why they can't get to your page.

By going to tinyurl and pasting in that huge URL above, the site generated this short URL instead:

http://tinyurl.com/cksgn

Go to both URLs and they should lead to the same place.

http://tinyurl.com/

<><

PodCacher Stats

2006-01-04T12:05:00.000-08:00

Things change, they always do, but for now, today, Jan 4th, 2006, PodCacher.Com is ranked 25th out of 11,858 podcasts!

Woohoo!

Woohoo indeed ...

Edit Jan 5th: Our ranked has increased to 23rd!

<><

After The Christmas Holidays

2006-01-02T12:53:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but I had a great Christmas season!

Life can get pretty busy sometimes y'know? I'm mean busy like "get up in the morning spend all day at work, get home shovel down some food, work into the night, then go to bed late tired so you can get up the next day" busy. That kind of busy.

This Christmas time was great. Not only do we get a chance to celebrate (the reason for the season) the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, but it also gives many of us a chance to "breath" and some time doing things that are not urgent, but very very important.

I was able to spend time with family. I feel really blessed that I can do that. We spent the first part of the day picking up my mom and then hanging out with the France clan. It was a great get-together. We ate, had some time to chat and play games (like croquet in the dark).

This season I had time to hang out with Sandy, skate, geocaching, watch several episodes of Battlestar Galactica on DVD (it's not as geeky as you might think), play some xbox, Myst, read Narnia, and just general "unwind".

Today I'm back at the grindstone, but with a renewed sense of refreshment and purpose. I'm ready once again to take on some "challenges".

Just what you need for Christmas

2005-12-28T08:11:00.000-08:00

Just in case you were missing that Christmas feeling, here is a singing wookie, to lull you into the proper Christmas spirit ...

Chewie Sings

.

Days off

2005-12-24T00:58:00.000-08:00

It's SO nice to have some time off. Today was the first day off for Christmas break. Actually as a school administrator, I don't get the kind of breaks that I used to when I was a classroom teacher. Just one thing about being a teacher that I really miss. I have 4 days off, then I work on Tues and Wed, and then another 4 days off again.

Today we got almost nothing done. Almost. We went out to look for Sandy's skates. This year her main Christmas present is a pair of inline skates. Woohoo! I'm so excited! She's just learning how to skate, but I'm sure she'll pick it up. We need to find some good places for her to practice and then take her down to Mission beach to get some skating in.

Just in time for Christmas!

2005-12-19T14:34:00.000-08:00

If you are done with your shopping and have too much time on your hands ...

Ya right ...

Go here:

http://www.pimpmynutcracker.com/

For Photo Lovers

2005-12-09T13:05:00.000-08:00

This is a link I've saved / used when I need some photo inspirations for my own photography or just to check out other cool work that people are creating ...

Flickr's Last 7 days most interesting photos

It changes every time you visit it so you can "reload" and check out even more pics.

I love photos, looking at them and creating them. I've always appreciated good art, 2D, sculpture, etc. With the exception of simple sketches I've never had a much patience (nor talent) to create remarkable works. Not only that, I've always thought that, after all the work I might put into a "piece", in the end I would have one "thing", one painting, one sculpture, one drawing. That has it's appeal, but not if you want to share it with many people.

Enter the digital age. Anything I create I can share via files and pixels. Enter photography. Enter digital photography. Oh ya baby!!! I have always been a photographer, as long as I can remember (really). When I was a very young kid, I got a black and white (camera) that I had to load 120 size film by hand (no cartridges!). Later on I got a color, Kodak pocket instamatic. Oh man I was stylin' now!

In high school I was one of the school photographers for the yearbook and newspaper. I shot 35mm for the first time! I used an old Pentax (a range finder) and BW film. I developed all the prints in a darkroom at the school. I learned how to develop film from scratch, use enlargers, dodge, burn, create contact prints, etc.

In college I bought my first SLR. A Canon EOS (the original). I went through several more SLRs (all EOS), and loved to take pics, but didn't like the fact that I had so little control over the developing process. I didn't have a dark room and relied on a shop to make my prints. I couldn't crop, or manipulate my images in any way.

Along comes digital photography. Even with the first cameras (a Sony Mavica) that had low resolution, I KNEW it was going to revolutionize the photo industry. I kept reading article after article at the time that said that digital photography would NEVER replace film. I smiled as I knew, confidently, it surely would.

Today I shoot with a digital SLR (Canon 20D) and a digital compact (Canon G6). I love them both for different reasons. In my "darkroom" (Photoshop), I can crop, burn, dodge, and manipulate to my hearts content.

Photography allows me to be creative, to create art and memories. I love the techy side of learning how to use the tools (the camera and photoshop) to truly create new works that are from my mind and heart. It didn't take me years of practice (like painting) to create a piece of reasonable quality. The images that I've created can be easily shared, they are not the one of a kind works such as a sculpture.

Don't get me wrong, I will always love and appreciate good art of any sort, but for me, the ability to CREATE is second to none.

Easily Amused

2005-12-05T15:15:00.000-08:00

Okay I admit it, I am WAY to easily amused. This thing had me all cracked up in a pathetic way. It doesn't take much I guess ...

The Button

CETPA, first full day

2005-11-16T22:49:00.000-08:00

Hear my ramblings about the first day at the CETPA conference.

Listen

Traffic, CETPA and PodCacher Growth

2005-11-15T22:27:00.000-08:00

Drove up to Santa Barbara today for the CETPA conference. Hear my ramblings about the car pool lane and the HUGE spike in PodCacher listeners.

Listen

Audio Problems

2005-11-13T16:11:00.000-08:00

I've been stumped. I can't figure this one out. An audio, sound engineering conundrum.

Listen

Back from the PME

2005-11-12T20:23:00.000-08:00

Listen

Just got back from the ultra geeky and very exciting Portable Media Expo.

I'm trying a new audio version of this blog. You can listen to it on the computer or download the file and listen to it on an MP3 player. You can also subscribe to this blog as a podcast (the feed link is on my main page) and get new shows when they are posted.

Too Much Time

2005-11-09T18:41:00.000-08:00

... on someone's hands.

Why?

Go here

What do you need?

2005-11-09T12:19:00.000-08:00

This is funny. Here's a free online fortune cookie or crystal ball.

Go to Google.

Type in "X needs" (including the quotes)

In place of X put your name. (i.e. for me it would be "Sonny needs")

It's hilarious to find out what you need.

Artificial Intelligence vs Natural Stupidity

2005-11-08T04:50:00.000-08:00

I read to completely unrelated things today.

Several months ago I posted here about a new gadget that I got, the 20Q handheld device. It was a "game" that could guess what you were thinking about in about 20 questions. The online version was very impressive. It used a very complex system hooked up to a massive database to be able to guess what you were thinking.

Here's the link to the online 20Q game.

Apparently it's an experiment in Artificial Intelligence. According to the creators, the game "learns" as more and more people give it input. Scary, fun but scary. I wonder how long before it becomes self aware and decides that it doesn't need us puny humans any longer? :)

A fun, cool, geeky version of the game is here. You'll especially enjoy this version if you are a Star Wars geek like me. Turn up your speakers!

Okay, so much for the Intelligence, now for the Stupidity.

Have you been to the Darwin Awards website? The site is full of stories of people who have killed themselves and thus removed their DNA from the gene pool. The thought is by removing genes for stupidity from the human gene pool, the human race will evolve ... into less stupid humans ... over time ...

Here's another story that tells me it's going to take a long time ...

iPods and Hearing Loss

2005-11-07T12:07:00.000-08:00

This Sunday I went walking / jogging in my neighborhood. I was headed down a "larger" street in the area: Over 2 lanes wide with a grass area divider between the two streets. Trees are planted in this grassy divide. On the OTHER sidewalk going in the other direction was another walker / jogger. I wasn't looking directly at him or paying any particular attention, but as I got closer, I could hear a sort of "hiss". Again, I wasn't paying attention to anything in particular, but this sound made me wonder. It sounded like a faint steam hiss. As I began paying attention I realized there were rhythmic beats in the "steam", sort of like tic, tic, tic ... I started looking around and realized that the sound was coming from the guy across the street ... I then glanced at him and realized that he had some white earbuds in place and was walking while listening to his music player (probably and iPod). He didn't even look at me, he was groovin' to the beat. I could hear from ACROSS THE STREET! I couldn't tell what song or distinguish any lyrics, but I could actually hear that he was listening to something!!! Whoa.

Read this

.

Crab vs Pipe

2005-11-05T21:04:00.000-08:00

This is a video taken in 6000 feet of water. An undersea robot is sawing a 3mm wide slit in a pipeline. The pressure inside the pipeline is 0 psi, while the pressure outside is 2700 psi, or 1.3 tons per square inch. Then a crab comes along.... Link

TechnoFrustration

2005-11-04T06:26:00.000-08:00

I'm sure that there are some of my non-techie friends out there get the impression that I never have trouble with technology. I know that some of them are really luddites at heart and would be happy if we could go back to the days of the carrier pigeon and making our own soap. I know that many of that many of them have experienced frustration with technology and probably think that I never do. The truth is, I often do. Most of the time I just push forward with persistance and determination because I need to do that to get the job done. I've encouraged them to do this and I try and model how you "usually" can win against the technology gremlins ... most of the time.

Yesterday, I got fed up and felt the techno-rage well up inside me. Within 48 hours the following things happened.

The back button on my browser would not work while I was working on Cal State work. No explanation.
I couldn't log on to AOL. No explanation.
Zip file wouldn't extract on one computer. No explanation.
iPod wouldn't connect. I think the HD is going bad. No explanation.
Car wouldn't start.
My new Palm has software install "issues" and kept losing data.
A CD jams in the powerbook while I am teaching at Cal State.
Couldn't find a paperclip to eject the CD. I later realize that the new PowerBooks do not have a manual paperclip eject feature anyhow.
Palm won't turn on in the morning. Not at all. I had to do a hard restart.
HD on the work iMac won't mount. I think it's fried.
Now my iPod connects fine.
CD finally ejects out of computer fine. A few seconds later I find a paperclip (ironic).
Student's midterm didn't upload to WebCT. I saw the student do it. Student failed to have a copy of the midterm as instructed.
Another site person has moved forward with technology without approval again.
The iPod starts making clicking noises.
My OPTICAL mouse cursor was sticking (like a mouse with a dirty roller / ball) ... But there is NO roller! ... and yes, it was on an "optically viable" surface. No explanation.
The iPod mounts irratically.
My brand new Palm will not turn on at all. It's fully charged and the reset button will not even bring it up.

GPS The Movie???

2005-11-01T12:34:00.000-08:00

Geocaching in the media becoming “mainstream”?

I was just sent this tip from one of our podcacher.com listeners (Borten): GPS The Movie

Several months ago, geocaching was apparently part of a story in the TV show “Law and Order”. I didn’t actually see the episode, but I have heard that the show did a poor job of representing our “sport” by having the cache container actually buried. (Caching veterans know that this is a no-no and goes against the rules).

I realize that Geocaching is a growing sport and may not have yet reached the kind of critical-mass-awareness to consider it mainstream just yet. I often wonder what “outsiders” (or muggles as we cachers sometimes call them) think of this arguably odd hobby?

I’m sure many of you have had the same experience: At some point you are talking to someone and the topic (Geocaching) comes up. They are curious (or you just want to share) and you try and figure out a way to explain it. At first they give you a polite smile and nod their head: you realize they still don’t get it. So you try to use metaphors and examples. Some of them may become intrigued enough to try it, and ONLY then do they really “get it”. Has this happened to you?

I took a peek at the movie trailer and it seems as though they are trying to sell it as a suspense thriller. From what I gather from the clip, there is some kind of crime committed and people are going to get hurt. … Great, just what our hobby needs … bad press about “weirdos” going through the woods on a hunt with the threat of danger, death and scary music ever present. I realize they are in the business of selling movie tickets and that a movie about a wholesome family with kids going out to interact with each other, excercise and enjoy the outdoors may not be a big seller, but … come on!

What do you think about this? Is this the kind of image we want to present about our community?

SD CUE

2005-10-31T08:14:00.000-08:00

I had a great time at the most recent SD CUE Fair (San Diego, Computer Using Educators). The cost is reasonable, it's local (no long drives or hotel), they have great local speakers, but most importantly it gives me a chance to connect with some of the most innovative, creative and energetic tech using educators from around the county.

I had a chance to chat with some old friends as well as make some new contacts this time around. In particular, I'm excited about some possibilities surrounding podcasting, blogging, and geocahcing (as they relate to education). I'll keep ya posted!

I also had a chance to sit in on some great sessions. I'm amazed at how often I can get a few "golden nuggets" from any session, even those subjects that I know a thing or two about! I'm always learning how much I don't know, and sharing what I do with others who may have not known what I know ... Did that make sense?! Anyhow, very groovy!

One of the tidbits that I picked up was a site called Bloglines. Essentially it's a service where you can store RSS feeds (such as blogs) to organize and help you read them in a "one stop" way.

Geocaching in Education

2005-10-28T09:02:00.000-07:00

Here's a story of how one teacher is using Geocaching in Education! Story

I think this is great! Geocaching can involve a lot more than just “following the arrow to the tupperware”. Although Sandy and I like the cache-and-dash / drive-up style caches that let you quickly boost up your total-find scores, we really enjoy puzzle caches that challenge you in more ways than one.

I truly believe if you can “engage” your students, you’re gonna get them to learn. Geocaching can be a very engaging experience, it has very tangible and definable goals. In addition to getting kids off their GameCube-Butts (don’t get me wrong I’m an xBox owner myself!) and getting excercise, I believe it fosters socialization (funny how you often end up talking and getting to know the people you cache with!) and helps develop puzzle-solving skills.

SD CUE and the Weekend

2005-10-27T12:35:00.000-07:00

Upcoming this weekend is the annual San Diego CUE (Computer Using Educators) conference. This is a great resource for teachers who use (or are thinking of using) technology in their classrooms. I've always found that these "mini-conferences" are great ways for local teachers to see, learn and be exposed to ways that technology is being using in classrooms in San Diego.

Here is a link: http://www.sdcue.org/

This is going to be a somewhat busy weekend. Friday night is the Kazakhstan get together for a bunch of us who have been out there. From what I understand there will even be some people from Kazakhstan visiting out here who will also be there! Cool. We are to bring some type of dessert dish. I suggested to Sandy that we should bring something called "eyeball suprise". She was not amused.

I just found an article that is one link between education and podcasting. Cool!

http://tinyurl.com/d84uq

Anniversary in Idyllwild

2005-10-24T13:05:00.000-07:00

Just got back from our anniversary weekend up in Idyllwild. That was my first time there. A nice little small mountain town. It was a great get-away, very relaxing. I was actually able to sit and play the uke for a bit too! I had the time to really play and focus. I'm amazed at the depth of that little instrument. Most people think of the Ukulele as a whimsical "toy", but if played well it can be an amazing instrument. Check out music by an artist called Jake Shimabukuro for an example of awesome Uke playing!

Here's a pic that I shot of the local mountains near sunset.

It was nice to get away from the "heavy" tech use for a couple days. I say heavy because there was still a small amount of electronically driven things we had with us. My iPod and a set of small portable speakers is always good for some background music. I carried around the DSLR and had some interesting conversation with some local shop owners about photography and art because of that. We did bring a laptop and watched one episode of TNG one evening.

When we got back home (Jake still has his cathoder and head cone on), Sandy and I recorded show #21: The geocaching proposal story part 2. We haven't gotten a lot of response from our recent shows and it makes me wonder if anyone is listening to us anymore. Sandy and I came up with this idea that's related to geocaching, but we'll have to see if we can make it happen.

TinyURL

2005-10-22T09:09:00.000-07:00

Okay I just found this cool site:

http://www.tinyurl.com

Here's what is does: You paste in the URL from a webpage that could be long, huge and complicated and it spits out a simple, compact URL for you to use instead! An important use for this would be when you post a link to a complicated URL in a EMAIL. Many times the links "break" and the user can't get to the page. These won't break and don't expire. Very cool!

The new Mac

2005-10-20T13:11:00.000-07:00

We recently received shipment on our new Mac (iMac) the other day. Finally! My old home computer was an old iMac (Graphite edition. See pic on the right) running OS 9. I remember how blazingly fast that computer seemed to be when I first got it. I remember how much storage space I thought I had. I remember how I thought that 128mb of RAM was great and huge! In the last few years, I've run out of space, the RAM is not large enough, it would lock up and crash many times. I was not able to run the latest, programs any longer. Features that I wanted / needed to use were not available for one reason or another. We have set aside the old iMac. We're not sure what we're going to do with it. I'll probably scrub it clean and reinstall the OS to get it up and running, but again, I'm not sure what the best use for it will be.

On the other hand, the new iMac is great. A 17" LCD screen. 2GHZ processor, and 1 gig of RAM. A CD DVD burner combo. We are using an external HD (250 gig) as backup. I've installed the newest version of photoshop and dreamweaver on it. Very nice! The machine is fast and very capable of running the latest software. We have enough space to begin creating files (movies for DVD burning etc.) in the applications. I'm trying to learn as much as I can about the new Photoshop CS2. But it's vast and there is a LOT to learn! Sandy is learning Dreamweaver as she is diving into web design for fun and (possibly) profit!

Back to my thoughts about the "progress" of technology tho: It amazes me how quickly technology can become outdated or falls short of our (new) expectations. You wouldn't think of a computer as a "disposable" item like a lighter or a pair of chopsticks, but in the long run they really are. After using the tool for a given amount of time it simply will no do what you need it to and so you get a new one. The old one has lost so much value and is almost worthless. Almost; some of the heavy ones make good doorstops. I have an OLD toshiba laptop that I still hang on to. I used it in my first years of teaching. It has a monochrome (black and white) LCD screen. VERY dim. And basically all it can do now is simple word processing and a spreadsheet. The problem is, how do I get my work out? It doesn't have USB and if I put the file on a floppy where will I use that floppy elsewhere? The thing is heavy and the battery last just long enough for it to boot up so it can shut down.

I wonder how long it will be before the hot iMac we just bought will be turned into a doorstop?

By the way, since buying the iMac that we did, Apple has come out with a newer, slimmer, faster iMac with built in camera and upgraded mouse. I kid you not.

Vacation Pics

2005-10-11T09:45:00.000-07:00

Pics

When you get to the picture set, you can click on "view as slideshow" or simply look at each pic one at a time.

Hit the ground running

2005-09-30T12:52:00.000-07:00

We're back from our week galivanting about California. Since I'm no longer a K - 12 teacher, I don't get my summers off any longer (they were nice). In fact, summertime is actually a very busy time for the technology department at our district. We perform maintenance, upgrades, and many other changes that are best to do when teachers and students are not in session. This 1 week getaway was my one therapeutic chance to get away from it all for a bit. It was nice to drive away from the voices of so many obligations calling out for attention.

I remember the summer of my first year teaching. I was getting "real" paychecks for the first time and stretched it to go out to Europe on a backpacking trip for 6 weeks. I'm really glad that I went when I did. I look back at all the years since then. Every year I had to work summer school or otherwise supplement my income and would not have had the opportunity to go. These days I am lucky to get 2 weeks in a row, very lucky.

On this trip we drove up the coast on Friday night and reached Santa Barbara. On Saturday we had breakfast and walked the pier. We also hid a podcache in Santa Barbara as well. We then drove up to San Simeon to see Hearst Castle. On the way up we stopped by Sandy's Aunt's house to take a look at it. They are interested in creating a website to help promote the rental of the house. It's a nice beach house in Cayucos (near San Simeon).

I'll post some picture soon.

CSUSM frustration and a vacation

2005-09-13T22:22:00.000-07:00

The start of this semester at CSUSM has begun with many points of frustration. I teach an ED 422 class at Cal State University, San Marcos. It's a technology course for individuals seeking a California Teaching Credential. There have ALWAYS been problems and glitches, but this year I'm running into quite a few. I've taught this course for 5 years now. First there are technical problems. For some unexplainable reason, they YahooGroups resource that I've always used each year is having problems. Many students are having problems downloading assignments and readings. Argh! I've started loading the documents directly to my server, as a quick solve, but why isn't YahooGroups "working"?

The other concern at the start of this semester is the ability of certain students to follow directions. Several of them seem to have difficulty following directions. They are turning in things that they do not need to, they are not turning in things that they need to, they are turning in assignments in formats other than what I have requested, they are mis-labeling assignments turned in, they are turning in assignments late, just to name a few problems. My written directions are clear (in my humble opinion) on my website, but some students have not read them or have chose not to follow them. I've given verbal directions in class, sometimes to the point of being comical because I've repeated myself several times, and yet I have still received work that reflects that they did not hear, understand or care to follow the directions.

This year there are also many of them who needed to add the class. I didn't have the heart to turn anyone away this time. So many of them had desperate needs to take this class, this semester. I have a large class this semester. My concern is the amount of attention I will be able to give to each student. Large class sizes were always the thorn in my side when teaching in the K - 12 classroom, the rules don't change when teaching at the university. There is a threshold point somewhere at which the quality and focus of my instruction decreases in direct correlation with class size.

This year my vacation falls on the 4th week of teaching. I will be giving the class an assignment on Ethics and Copyright during this time. I'm really looking forward to this trip. I feel burned out in certain areas. The trip to Kazakhstan was much more of a business, working trip than it was any form of vacation. I kept running into people, once school got back into swing, that had pleasant, restful sounding vacations. When I they asked, and I told them I went to Kazakhstan, they often commented that "Wow that sounds fun, did you have a good time?" Although it was a great experience and I wouldn't have passed it up, it wasn't a break in any shape or form. It was exhausting. We got back on the weekend, had a couple days to recover (from a 13 timezone difference) and I headed back to work that week.

Work at EUHSD is a bear right now. High expectations and low resources. Argh! Sandy and I have been asked to lead a Bible study when we get back. I'm excited but a bit concerned about the time once again. Podcasting is going well, but in the "growing" stage right now takes time to promote and grow the business. We just got back from a fun, but tiring, geocaching picnic event in Los Angeles. We introduced many geocachers to the concept of podcasting. Fun stuff.

CSUSM, Family and Katrina

2005-09-02T12:40:00.000-07:00

The first night of class went well last night except for one thing, there are too many students and not enough sections available. If all the students return next week that were trying to add this week, I WILL have to turn many of them away. Ug! I know that some of the students are in dire need to take the class, and others are taking it because it's convenient at this time. I wish that there were some way to make sure the students with the greatest need get priority. Unfortunately there is no mechanism set up to do that. As I said: Ug.

I'm really looking forward to this weekend. We are spending Fri night, Sat and part of Sun with the France clan at some cabins down by the beach. There will be Mom and Dad France, 4 Husband/Wife couples and kids. There may be other people visiting us at the beach as well. This oughta be pretty cool! Monday we'll be going over to another family member's house for a pool party. The pool party has become traditional get together each year and should be fun too!

Sandy and I did a show recently that didn't have anything to do with geocaching. We mentioned the thoughts we had about the hurricane disaster down in the Gulf and let our listeners know that we put together a bunch of links to help them donate or help out if they were inclined to do so. I got into work today and spent a little time catching up on the headlines before things got rolling. I'm saddened at the state of the situation. Apparently no significan response or help has arrived. There is rampant looting and violence. Thousands and thousands of people are stranded without food, water, shelter, etc. There is no electricity, there are no bathrooms. People are in panic and have stolen guns to use against others. There are dead bodies around. The police are outnumbered and outgunned. It's very sad. Sandy and I will be contributing a portion of the monthly amount that we typically set aside for our church (tithe) to sent toward the relief effort out there. I feel so helpless living way out here without any real way to send help except through money.

Getting Busy

2005-08-29T20:48:00.000-07:00

This Thursday is the first class for the next ED 422 semester. I'm really looking forward to teaching again. Although things tend to get busy fast (Bible study starts up at about the same time that CSUSM starts up) I think I'm ready to get rolling. At least this year I don't have band rehearsal every Monday night any longer.

The new activity that Sandy and I will have to make time for is the Podcacher recording that we typically do on Sunday night for a Monday show. Sandy and I are still working out some bugs, but the production and post production are starting to become quicker and more efficient. One thing that we did new with this last show was house in on a new server (libsyn) to try and solve the download problems that have happened with some of our listeners. We are still waiting for more feedback, but one person has already written us and said that things are much better.

We'll see.

We had a "root analysis" meeting at work today. The meeting was fascilitated by our new assistant superintendent of Businiess Services. He led us through a 4 hour discussion in an attempt to reveal the core or root causes to some of the problems that we are experiencing. In this particular case we explored the issue of technology. I was really glad that we had the opportunity to run this excercise regarding technology. I have the opinion that there are many aspects regarding the complexity of the management of technology that most people are not aware of. I'm happy to raise awareness with this important issue when possible.

A busy weekend

2005-08-22T17:24:00.000-07:00

It started off on Friday afternoon after a long day at work. We went to go see Lee Ann Williams (my secretary's daughter) in Grease. That was somewhat of a late night. Saturday morning we slept in for just a bit, but then had to get rolling. Our nieces and nephew needed to be watched for part of that day. During that time I had to head out to Church to rehearse and play for the praise band. Things went well. I got home after church (about 8:00pm) and began working on the Logo for PodCacher.com. I finished early in the morning of Sunday. Went to bed around 2:00am and got up early to go play in the band at church for both services. Got off work and hunted for several caches in the Vista area. Headed home and went to Fry's to pick up a recorder for the phone. (to do phone interviews for Podcacher) Got home and was exhausted. Took a nap and woke up at 5:30pm. Rushed out the door to get to the geocacher pizza party. Stayed until about 9:30, then drove home. Got home and began working on the podcast show for Monday morning. Recorded the show and went to bed around 2:00am. Got up at 6:00 to try and get to work. They want directors to come in 30 minutes earlier than we have in the past from now on.

A techno-horror weekend

2005-08-15T10:07:00.000-07:00

Technology is a great thing ... most of the time. Being a techno-geek means putting up with the unexpected and expected frustrations of using advanced, cutting-edge technology that may just decide not to do what you want it to do. If this sounds like the beginning of a rant, it is.

It's Monday at work and I have just left behind one of those weekends where you wish you had simply gone to the beach with a good book and the only technology you had was your (analog) watch. No cell phone, no MP3 player, no palm, no digital camera, no voice recorder, no LED mini light on my keychain. Yup, one of those weekends.

Technology is a double edged sword. When it functions the way in which it was designed AND meets your expectations, life is good. When it fails to do either or neither, sales of sledge hammers at Home Depot rise.

I have a pretty high tolerence for techno-frustration I would think. To be a self proclaimed techno-geek you have to develop thick skin toward things that have circuits in them. I realize that my cell phone probably has more computing power in it than the rockets of the early NASA space vehicles, but that doesn't make me feel any better. It's not the occaisional or sporadically distributed experience that really get me, it's when my technology decides to gang up on me with relentless zeal like HAL, SKY-NET, or the WOPR. (BTW if you can name the references that I just made you too are a techno-geek, live with it). It's the gremlins that get me. Bugs. Murphy's Law.

Went out to record a FTF Podcast and the MiniDisc record stopped recording. It didn't stop giving me information that it was recording mind you, it simply stopped recording the audio to the disc. A FTF is one of those experiences in audio recording that you can't duplicate. It's a "live" documentation of a one time event. So it's a real bummer when you don't get it on the first take. The recorder was passing audio to my earphones telling me everything was okay. The readout on the MD display was showing the db monitor gleefully flicking away telling me everying was okay. The timer was counting out the time passed on the recording telling me everything was okay. Not until we got home to check the reading did we find out that there was a problem. There were files there alright, several minutes long in fact, but they were blank. It was like the time jump in CONTACT. I didn't even have any static on my recordings though. The files were obviously corrupt. I couldn't fast forward through them either. So we lost all that data.

Later on the same hike, my digital camera fell over into the hard packed dirt of the trail. I had mounted it on my walking stick as I have done so many times in the past, but today a breeze came by, at the precise moment to blow it over. SMASH! I have a picture of black when the timer took a picture.

The real pain came later Sunday night. Sandy and I planned and then began recording for our Monday podcast. One thing after another went wrong. Too many to describe or explain here. But VERY strange quirky things happened. Again and again. By 2:00 am we called it quits.

I've become a flickr junkie

2005-08-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

Okay one on of the coolest photo services out there (and there are quite a few) for sharing albums, quickly organizing and uploading pics is flickr. This company has recently been bought by Yahoo!, so I don't think they are going to go anywhere. (One of my main concerns when I first "cling" to a new dotcom. Sandy and I are using this service in conjunction with our new podcasting endeavour at www.podcacher.com.

The photo on the right takes you to one pic of my photo sets, but the thing that I've begun to get hooked on is checking out other people's photos. Some of these are GREAT! With the advent of digital cameras, there are a LOT of blossoming professional looking pics out there. On the main page of flickr they put links to random new photos. Very cool and geeky indeed!!!

Podcacher.com is starting to grow

2005-08-10T16:39:00.000-07:00

An endeavor that Sandy and I have begun to see grow is our site: http://www.podcacher.com. Currently we jumped from around 120 listeners to about 180. The main reason for this is because we have begun to ask other podcaster to post our "promo" on their shows. In particular a show called MacCast (one of the top 10 shows) ran our promo. This caused the leap in our listenership. We'll see where this goes. Right now Sandy is learning a great deal regarding PHP and MySQL. This is something that I don't have time to learn AND Sandy is brilliant at picking stuff up like this.

If you haven't already check out the site get on over there and sign up!

The week before things get rolling

2005-08-05T13:37:00.000-07:00

It's a Friday here at the School District and we are ramping up for a new school year. There will be many changes this year . We have a new superintendent: Ed Nelson. Ed will be taking over the position from Dr. David Hughes who has been our leader for the last 5 years. Steve Boyle, formerly principal at EHS will be the new Asst. Supt of Human Resources. Bob Calkins the Asst Supt of Business Services will be replaced by Barry Dragon.

I'm really hoping that we can make some positive stride and progress this year. There is currently rumor that we will have a approval to hire another technician. Currently we support approximately 2,500 computers with 6 technicians and 1 supervisor, a very challenging task. Each technician is responsible to maintain and support his local area network and approximately 600 computers. Many of the the computers were purchased in 2000 and are deteriorating.

SonnyPortacio.com Online

2005-07-15T16:50:00.000-07:00

SonnyPortacio.com is now online. On this site you can also find a link to some pics from our Kazakhstan trip.

Learning new things

2005-07-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

This was a great weekend. It started off by sleeping in (always a good start to a weekend in my humble opinion). Mom (France) and Sandy's sister, Sheryl came over with Joshua. We had a small birthday celebration for Sandy, we shared pictures from our Kazakhstan trip and Joshua got to learn the wonders of a super-soaker squirt gun.

Sunday we went to the later church service because Sandy was going to serve for the first time in the Children's Ministry. Sandy has always enjoyed working with kids, she did so for several years at her church in Florida so I'm sure she going to do great and fit in just right! The sermon was good. Larry was the one who taught. It was about a Family Makeover (Ephesians 6: 1-4) and the roles of parents and children. He did a great job of giving examples and making it practical.

After church we headed out to visit with my mom. We gave her some of the Kazakhstan gifts that we had brought over (chocolate, a little felt camel, etc.) and took her out to lunch. During lunch we showed her some pictures from our trip on the laptop. After lunch we headed out to do some geocaching. (My mom LOVES geocaching!). Afterwards Sandy and I spent some time at the zoo and headed home.

Once home, I put the final finishing touches on the PodCacher website. I learned a lot trying to figure out how to get our podcast "live". Success! I love learning new things!

Back from Kaz / New WebSites / The 4th

2005-07-05T13:31:00.000-07:00

Kazakhstan Emblem

The 4th, 2005

We've just gotten back from our trip to Kazakhstan. We've got lot's of stories and and (of course) photos to share. I will create a website with the photos and some explanation of our activities. While out there I also recorded audio. Sandy and I recorded an audio journal almost everey day of our visit. It contains our reflections and thoughts of our experience. I was also able to capture 5 stories that were written and presented by Kazkhstan educators as part of our program. I'll be working with these audio files, adding sound effects and music in post production and creating CDs for distribution.

I've created 2 new web sites: podcacher.com and sonnyportacio.com. The PodCacher website will be devoted to geocaching and podcasting (hence the name). Podcasting is the big rising star and buzzword in technology right now. Apple just released iTuned 4.9 with podcasting. This has really exploded the podcasting community. Sandy and I will be putting together periodic podcasts discussing gear, paperless caching, favorite caches, etc. Another idea is to create a "PodCache": We will create a podcast with specific directions to a cache. No GPS required! Not sure where this will go or what it will lead to, but it sounds like fun.

Sandy and I went down to San Diego bay to watch the fireworks for the 4th. Knowing that it was going to be a traffic jam zoo, we took our bikes on the roof of our car. We parked a decent distance away, rode the bikes in and locked them up and I snapped some photos. After the last fireworks, as predicted, a traffic zoo. Sandy and I got on our bikes, scooted out of the traffic, got to our car and easily drove out of there. I need to remember the "anti-traffic bike trick" for times just like these.

Prepping for Kazakhstan

2005-06-11T22:07:00.000-07:00

Today Sandy and I spent a good part of our Saturday preparing for our trip to Kazkhstan. I'm really excited to get out there again. Two years ago I went out there and spoke on 2 topics. We presented at a university in Almaty called Kimep. I spoke on Project Based Learning / Multiple Inteligences and on the Ethical Use of Technology in Education. This year I will be sharing information on what teachers in the U.S. are expected to learn (in the teacher credentialling program) regarding the use of technology in the classroom. I will also be teaching simple web design and discuss the educational implications of this resource as well.

Geocaching, PodCasting, Star Wars and New Resources

2005-05-25T11:54:00.000-07:00

Our Geocaching Growth Group
Originally uploaded by portacio.

The last few days have been VERY cool in the life of this TechGeek.

1) We recently took some friends Geocachin g. Several people from our Growth Group (Bible Study Group) were interested to do this as a "social". (See photo) I had a great showing some newbies the sport / hobby. I think we have some converts: they were "dormant" geocachers that only needed their first taste to "bloom".

2) PodCasting has a lot of potential. Steve Jobs recently (this weekend) announced that the next version of iTunes (coming out in 60 days) would allow people to track RSS feeds and easily subscribe to podcasts. Sandy and I have something in the works right now for our own podcast. STAY TUNED!

3) Sandy and I went to see Star Wars III last night. Ohhhh my! What a nice wrap up to a 6 movie dynasty! Of course being the StarWars Geek that I am, there were times that I was squirming in my chair seeing / hearing significant Star Wars references in the movie that I didn't have time to comment on DURING the movie. I later chatted with Sandy about those references. She thinks I'm too much of a geek but says she still loves me anyhow.

4) New Internet Resources: I have found flickr.com. This allows you to upload photos, share them with people, let them see a slide show AND best of all: easily upload photos (as the geocaching photo on this post) to a blog! Oh yaaa!

Spending my holiday working on SPHS

2005-03-26T15:10:00.000-08:00

On Thursday I came to work on the SPHS problem. I realized that things didn't look good in getting the campus up by Monday. This week I had Friday off for Spring break.

Sandy came and worked with me on Friday all day at SPHS. A team of us worked at a blazing pace assembly line style trying to configure computers to prep them to be usable on Monday.

Today (Sat) we came in again and worked all day. I had hoped that we would have been able to solve the problems by mid day, but that was not the case. We've been here all day and it looks like we still may not be done by the time Sandy and I will need to leave to go to church. Everyone else who has worked here gets paid, overtime in fact. I am not so fortunate.

Tomorrow, Sunday, will be our only free day on my 3 day holiday that I can actually take advantage of.

Gadget Alert

2005-03-23T08:09:00.000-08:00

Several weeks ago I got a gift certificate to Fry's (one of my favorite stores, as if you couldn't guess that one). I was given the gift certificate as a thank you from someone (Isabel) who I recommended as a Masters candidate to the Pepperdine Masters program. I had taught in the program one semester a few years back. One of the profs that interviewed her said "If Sonny says your good enough to get in, your in." Very flattering.

Anyhow back to the originally scheduled story here: I finally went to Fry's to geek out a bit and spend some of the gift certificate that was burning a hole in my nerdy pocket. Sandy came along. After searching for a Phillips keychain camera (they didn't have it), a midi pre amp for my "recording studio" (they didn't have it), I finally bought a 20Q handheld game (by Radica). It is a portable pocket version of the 20Q "game" online. Okay this thing is way geeky cool! The website says it's an experiment in AI (Artificial Intelligence) and is very impressive on it's own. What really impresses me is the handheld device. It was actually able to guess what I was thinking (common everyday objects) usually within 20 questions. Stuff like stop sign, shoes, dental floss, and asparagus! The thing is about the size of a bar of soap. It's hard to believe that it contains the data and programming that it must have to decide what questions to ask and a huge database to match the responses against! 15 bucks at Fry's.

This coming weekend

2005-03-22T15:17:00.000-08:00

I'm really looking forward to some time off this weekend. The current plans are to visit the Anza Borrego state park once again to get another look at the wild flowers. This year has been an amazing year of rains for Southern California, a record year. Because of the combination of rain and sunshine, this year has seen the biggest wildflower bloom since, some say, 1993. Sandy and I will be heading out there as my "not a morning person" body will allow me. I hope to get more photos of the wildflowers in bloom, hopefully some good enough to frame and hang. And of course, we'll have to log in some time geocaching out there too. The last time we were out there we found several caches in quick succession, pushing the so called limit of being no closer than .1 mile from each other. Hmph!

I also need to get my bike repaired sometime soon. A few weeks ago I took a good spill in the dark on one of our night rides. I came down pretty hard, but fortunately the only casualties were my new riding jacket, and my bike. Nothing that can't be fixed, I hope. Anyhow last night I tried to get my bike on the rack to take it to a bike shop, and the rack broke ... Ggrrr. With the weather turning to as nice as it is I really want to get out there and ride.

Next weekend Sandy will be going on a Christan Womens retreat and my brother and I will be heading to Big Bear to do some snowboarding. It should be fun.

Monday after a busy weekend

2005-03-21T10:12:00.000-08:00

Back here at work on a Monday trying to squeeze in some quiet time to write this next installment for this blog. The weekend flew by and we mostly did work.

Saturday I got up early. Sandy was going to teach (for the first time) Inspiration. 2 teachers showed up. She did a really good job. I was impressed. The technology failed for the first hour. It was very frustrating. The tech who set up the laptops apparently did not test them to find out if there would be any problems. This (the failure of technology when I am presenting) has happened repeatedly over this last school year. I have been to EHS to speak about technology and the equipment has not been set up. I have been to VHS to train on GroupWise and the equipment was not set up. I have been to OGHS to teach on GroupWise and the equipment was not set up.

After the Inspiration training we went back home, worked on CSUSM things, then went to church. Church was good. The pastor who spoke (Chris Brown) did an excellent job of teaching. He illustrated in a way that he always does; very down to earth and entertaining, but but very poignent at the same time. He spoke about how Christ was coming into Jerusalem on a colt and the significance of this time.

Afterwards, Sandy and I came home watched the last hour of The Hunt for Red October and went to sleep. (We didn't have enough time to finish the movie when we started it several days before)

The next morning we got up early to get going out to San Clemente. My sister in law, Sheryl, was going to speak at her church to be comissioned to go on a mission trip to Malawi (East Coast of Africa). She will be leaving in about a week. Afterwards we visited at their house for a bit we left for home at about 2:30. It was fun to visit with them and just hang out. We got to play a game of Sorry which took a bit of time to play as we spread it out over eating and talking. I got to see Jon's work on his bike carrying cases. He's done some good work here. He's taken military ammo cans and converted them to carry gear for his motorcycle. It's amazing what he's done and it's turned out great.

After we got home we planned out some caches to do. We got some caching in and crossed over the magical 200 mark. Woohoo! We saw some VERY creative and clever caches. One was set up so you went to one way point and had to find a long stick with a hook on it. Then you had to go to another waypoint and the cache was high in a tree disguised as a bird feeder. It was hanging from a weight and pulley system. You needed to use the stick from the first way point, and pull down the bird feeder. Very clever. Another cache we did that day sent us on a search to find a missing "dog". The first waypoint was a sign stapled (high) to a telephone pole that said they had lost a dog. The telelphone numbers to call were actually lattitude and longitude numbers. Then we did a few more waypoints and finally got to the final cache. It was near the humane society and it was IN a stuffed animal (dog) and fit the theme quite well. Very impressive.

On other news I survived and apparently did good enough on the audition to play for North Coast Church. I'll be playing there for the first time in April. I'm really looking forward to that. For this first time they want me to play acoutic guitar, but not sing. They've also told me that they may need me to play the djembe (drum) at times as well.

Another Rushed Lunch

2005-03-15T12:49:00.000-08:00

Only 10 minutest to write this time.

Poor Sandy woke up in the middle of the night and was sick. So far, I haven't been stricken with the stomach thing that got her. I'm hoping it wasn't the salmon that we had for dinner last night.

Drove to work listening to Dread Zeppelin, a funky band. They cover Led Zeppelin songs, sung by an Elvis impersonator, with a Reggae style ... seriously.

Got to work and forgot that my computer was still taken apart (just cables). We unplugged it and plugged in another computer that also didn't allow me to work. I finally worked on Linda's computer yesterday just to try and get work done. After getting my comptuer up and running, I am now convicted. I NEED a new computer. There is something seriously wrong with this computer! After clicking on a Word doc, it takes over 3 minutes for me to actually work on it. If it isn't the doc I need, and open another ... it'll be another 3 minutes. Argh! I've already put in an order for a new computer and am just waiting ...

I've started another blog, this one with a professional bent to it. The idea is to write a blog for the school district regarding technology. Teachers will get my point of view (somewhat edited of course) that explains events, concerns, activities, etc. from my point of view. We'll see if this works.

Lunchtime at work

2005-03-14T12:43:00.000-08:00

I only have a few minutes left of lunch to post: I'm a little concerned at this point about 2 things coming up. 1) My class at CSUSM. I have some catching up to do. I need to grade some assignments and firm up the final activities for the rest of the semester. 2) My audition tomorrow night (Tues) at North Coast Church with Andy. I'm pretty confident, but want to make sure I put my best foot forward. He asked me to bring both my acoustic and electric guitars and audition both of them. He wants to see if I can lead (sing and play the acoustic) songs. Again, since I've been doing this already for the last 5 years, I'm pretty confident, but still uncertain how much skill he is expecting from me. I've never had voice lessons or anything like that and am unsure if that is a major factor or not. Linda did say to make sure that I told them about the "extra" instruments that I play: Sax, didgeridoo, harmonica, recorder, djembe, etc. and that they might be able to use those as well.

Back from PS

2005-03-14T09:59:00.000-08:00

I just got back from PS and found that incidents have happened while I've been gone. Students at one of our schools has been caught logging on using a teacher's computer. Just a quick summary, the domain controller at SPHS was recently hacked and compromised. In order to repair and safeguard the network, we had to take it down. At this point we were very clear that students are not to log in to computers at all. If they did, they would have unrestricted clear access to some very sensitive areas of our network.

This can't continue! I'm going to talk to the assistant principal at the school on how we should proceed.

It is very frustrating to hear from staff that our network is slow, or that technology never seems to work. Then I hear that the same users are doing things that directly impact the network. They complain about conditions, but don't contribute to a solution, only more problems.

On another topic: Sandy and I got back to find a message on our answering maching from Ann, the person coordinating the trip to K this year. She said that she didn't need me to come along this year. Sandy and I didn't know what to say. We were so upset and frustrated. We don't understand. How could they not need me to come out there with the team? This one is going to take a lot of prayer and "cooling off" before I call her to discuss and try to understand.

On yet another topic: I was able to visit my brother out at the zoo that he works at in Palm Desert. He is the only Vet Tech for the entire zoo. (It's a small zoo with 1 Vetrenarian and 1 vet tech). I was really impressed and amazed at what my brother is doing these days. He works with rattlesnakes, cheetahs, and camels. Amazing stuff really.

Geocaching in PS

2005-03-13T20:14:00.000-08:00

A cool hobby! Check out geocaching.com if you haven't heard of this activity yet.

My wife and I did some caching in PS while we were there. We only have 2 more to go to cross over the big 200! While we were out there we met Daryl (WestCoastAdmin). Got to chat a bit about Virtuals and such. What are the odds of running into him? Strange huh? I'm glad that I was "civil" about the way in which I handled the Point Loma Lighthouse issue.

Sandy and I had a great time caching. I always have a good time caching with her. She is as intense (if not more so) as I am about finding the cache! During one night hunt we were almost over run by people jogging in some sort of race. Okay, that's too much of an understatement: They were running wearing lingere, pajamas, and nighties (even the men). The first "group" of people we saw were women carrying open sacks of flour wearing "teddies" and devil horns. These women would drop a handful of flour every so often. We figured they were marking a trail. Sure enough a bunch of people came later and were following the flour trail.

That night we were also in hunting for a cache in a graveyard. GC takes you to some "unique" places to be sure. Unfortunately we were not able to find that cache.

Out at the CUE Conference in PS

2005-03-13T20:08:00.000-08:00

I learned about blogger.com from Bernie Dodge a the CUE conference. He did a session on Blogs and Wikis. I've heard about blogs for sometime now and (incorrectly) assumed that there were essentially discussion groups. Apprantly there are some subtle distinctions. I'll give this service a try and see how I like it.