Melissa and Luke’s boy had a blast nomming on his birthday cake.   Here is a quick edit I put together of him.

On a whim (and on a nudge from MobileLab) I downloaded the VoiceBand for iPhone app. I think this will be fun as soon as I can actually get some time to play with it. Here is a quick sample I made while sitting in my car. This is the sound of my car on idle, as played by the bass guitar simulated instrument in VoiceBand.

I wonder what it would be like to record random city noises and assemble them in to some sort of hodge podge song. Perhaps something like what Mona Kasra has done with Daily Tones.

I shot photo/video Sunday for some friends and I like how it turned out!

I donated $10 via text message to the Red Cross to support earthquake victims in Haiti. You should too.

Dr. Parry’s class is starting up. As usual, it will be a major amount of reading. It should be a challenge (a good one).

Here is the course description. Source

For roughly 400 years, a period we might refer to as the Gutenberg Parentheses, analog print has served as the primary substrate for knowledge creation, archivization, and dissemination. This, to state the obvious is no longer the case, a vast majority of the information produced this year will never see an analog format, instead existing only in the digital network. This class will focus on understanding what happens as we move from a culture whose primary means of knowledge organization is analog print to one which is digitally networked. The class will be divided into three sections. In the first we will look at the broad theoretical questions which inform this change. In the second we will look at how specific knowledge and cultural institutions (libraries, journalism, higher education, entertainment) have been affected and examine the approaches/experiments that have already been taken. In the final portion of the class students will work in groups to produce projects and propose alternative approaches and solutions. Recommended for all EMAC students.

Note to self: Wealth of Networks is a Free Download.

Here’s some initial footage and photos from my work (with Nico) on a music documentary on The King Bucks. I’m excited to work on this project, and I look forward to when we can have enough footage and other materials together to make a story.

I’m helping Nico with a music documentary project. I’m not sure where it’s heading, but I’m sure we will come up with some great material in the end.

Here’s some audio I recorded last night. This is The King Bucks covering Buck Owens (right click, save as to download).

And here’s a snippet of video.

Erin and I co-hosted a birthday party on Saturday night. Since we didn’t have any experience with a mobile + tech event, I was worried about how it would come together. However, I was surprised to see how many people participated. And it was fun!

Here’s how to roll your own mobile, real-time photo scavenger hunt:

• We bought several yards of fabric (one per team) and fashioned our own makeshift scarfs (this is an important if you want to be able to tell which team shot which photo, because that person or object could be shot with scarf in the frame)

• Before the event, we informed the guests to make sure they had the Flickr mobile application (and had an account ready to go)
• When guests arrived, we ate some appetizers and had a drink… then provided instructions on how to upload scavenger hunt photos to Flickr, and which tag to use (so we can aggregate the photos more easily)
• Once we assigned teams, we set off down Henderson Avenue, stopping by various bars
• At the end, we all met up at the same location to hang out and compare photos

Check out the results from our scavenger hunt, tagged BEScavenger. I shot some photos that night with my other camera and added them later.

You’ll also notice that there are a few crazy ones that ended up in the pool, like Colleen and Tony’s cat, who did not attend the scavenger hunt in real-time, but was later given honorary “red team” status.

Art Conspiracy was neat. This was my first year to attend, and I was blown away at how many people contributed and how fun this event was. This even gets a strong recommendation from me!

Here’s my first piece made with my new Canon 7D. Audio recorded with a Zoom H2.

Lessons Learned:

• Recording live audio in a warehouse is difficult. Don’t move around because the location change picks up on the recording
• Stabilization is important. Waiting on help from Santa for some reinforcements
• Shooting with a DSLR is a little bit easier than the Canon HF10
• Don’t buy memory for your camera from an overseas vendor. It’s harder to return if you get a crappy dud (shame on you, flahsmemorymall and SanDisk!)
• Zoom H2 doesn’t play nice with final cut. Conversion to AAC format required