Losing my Memories

When I read this assignment I honestly got super excited but sad at the same time. Excited, because I can actually relate to it! But sad because unfortunately, I lost my memories.

During the summer of 2006, I traveled to Italy and Greece with the People to People Student Ambassador program. I’d have to say it was definitely some of the best 3 weeks of my life. I was completely immersed into both the Greek and Italian cultures. I ate the food, spoke a little bit of the language, visited many of the historic sites, and so much more. Sometimes I wish time machines were a real thing so I could go back and relive it. I was so young, just 10 years old, I wish I had known at that age to really appreciate the opportunity that I had been given.

Well fast forward almost 10 years, and what do I have from that trip? Just a few t-shirts, a hat, some other small and random things. I’m sure you’re thinking “What about all those pictures that you took?” Yeah, well they’re lost. Probably forever.

As we all know, 2006 was definitely not 2015. Now we don’t have to worry much about needing to save all of our old memory cards and films and bring the negatives to be developed. We have the internet at the tips of our fingers to document our life’s journey, at little cost to us. Well it wasn’t quite that easy back in 06. The hundreds of photos that I took on this trip are located on a memory card, location unknown.

I was so stupid and never got the pictures printed. Why? Well 10 year-old me thought it wasn’t necessary. Because I’ll always have that camera and memory card and will be able to look back all the time. Right? Wrong. Who was I kidding? Technology is a thing man.

So last summer, my parents literally switched houses. Like my dad lives in my mom’s old house and my mom lives in my dad’s old house. I know, weird….but not the point. So during the whole house switch, my dad made me go through all of my old junk and toss things. Well I had done this for days. Man had I let my shit pile up. It was terrible. And I got so frustrated because it seemed never ending, that I started just chucking things left and right. I didn’t care what I was throwing away.

A few weeks after this happened I got to thinking, hey where did I put that memory card? It’s about time I have those pictures printed. Nowhere. To. Be. Found.

I’m about 99.9% sure that I chucked it. Never in my life have I felt so stupid. I would do anything to get those memories back. To just look back and really remember those three weeks from so long ago.

Fortunately, I still do have a couple of the pictures that I had taken on that trip. My memories will just have to solely ride on these.

205428_1052472246970_3365275_n 206516_1052471606954_1261341_n 215131_1052471566953_2189142_n 216231_1052472046965_5641232_n

Basically lesson learned. Never again will I act like technology doesn’t evolve, and never again will I treat my memories like complete shit. Always remember that Kaitlin, always remember.

That Fateful Day

For 2 stars this week, I played The Wiki Game. The object of this game is to start with a random word, and somehow end up at the ending randomized word, only using links found within the Wiki pages.  Some of the words are easier than others and after a while, the game can be quite addicting! The instructions for this assignment:

“…write a story, poem, song, or any other form expression using words using the words from the links you clicked to get from your starting word to your final word…”

I played this game a few times, until I found a path that I liked the most and thought I could write a story from.  Here are the games that I played with my clicked paths:

 

7 Clicks:Puerto Rico?Territories of the United States?United States Postal Service?New York City?United States?Ice hockey?Field hockey

6 Clicks: Weyburn Airport?Canada?Canada–United States border?Ohio?Greater Cleveland?Cleveland

5 Clicks: Another Cinderella Story?Canada?Fresh water?Snow?Summer

5 Clicks: Pro Wrestling Illustrated?United States?Contiguous United States?Indiana?Indianapolis

5 Clicks: Area code 869?United States?World War II?Nuremberg Trials?Nuremberg

——

And now, a story for your enjoyment.. (The bolded words are the links that I clicked on in the game.)

Starting word: Another Cinderella Story

Ending word: Summer

 

Sam was in a jam. She thought her life was just another Cinderella story. But boy, was she wrong. Things were starting to look up for Sam, when she met Luke. They were so happy together! They had been together for a few months now, and had decided to move to Canada to get away from her wretched step-family.  They were renting a small cottage that sat right on a fresh water lake. It was a wintry day, and Sam and Luke decided to go ice skating on the frozen lake.  It had been cold for a while now, and they assumed that the ice would be thick enough. They grabbed their skates and headed outside, only for one of them, this would be their last…

The freshly fallen snow had covered a fishing hole that had been used by the local ice-fishermen. One wrong step, and SPLASH! Luke had fallen into the icy water.  Sam was smaller than Luke, and she couldn’t pull him out! What was she to do!? She ran to the closest house on the far side of the lake to get help.

When Sam returned a short 15 minutes later, it was too late.  Luke was frozen in the ice, just next to the opening. Sam could see the terror, frozen in his expression, through the ice.

Sam was devastated, heart-broken.. There was no one else in the world as kindhearted and as tender as Luke.  Now she couldn’t wait for Summer to come, so she could forget that fateful day, when she lost her one true love.

The Dishes and the Beast?

For 2 stars this week, I decided to complete the TV Guide Remix Assignment.

Take an existing movie or television show and change the writing of the synopsis in a way where it’s still factual correct, yet the story line feels drastically different.

After a whole afternoon of thinking, I came up with a couple ideas for National Treasure, How to Train Your Dragon, and TURN: Washington’s Spies, but I found myself just repeating the plot, and not remixing it in any way. It wasn’t until I bounced a few ideas off of my roommate that things actually started to click. It was then that we came up with twisted plots for Annie, The Walking Dead, and Aristocats, but I eventually found an alternative and came up with my own. Can you guess which movie this twisted plot belongs to? (I might have given it away in the title… Oops)

Animate kitchenware plot to entrap a young maiden for their grotesque master.

The title actually sounds a bit horrifying, doesn’t it? What if you were captured and held hostage by animate cups and plates? What would you do?

 

Source: dailymotion.com

 

Source: pinterest.com

 

By sea, sun, and sand

NC Beach house

Outer Banks, NC

When I retire and can pick anywhere to live out my golden years, I would chose a place like the Outer Banks in North Carolina.  This area offers a sense of remote solitude and some of the most beautiful waterfront properties available anywhere.  Enjoying the sun, relaxing and reading a book would be a little slice of heaven delivered daily to my doorstep.  Go inland and I’ll find majestic tree lined streets with architecturally detailed homes.  The beachfront home pictured above was used for the film Nights in Rodanthe staring Richard Geer and Diane Lane.  The house is depicted in the film as a bed and breakfast and the simple scenes allow you to really get a sense of the house and the weather.  The waterfront weather will offer excitement and let you know you are alive.  It will allow you to feel the power of mother nature.  It is the simplicity of this kind of place that make them a happy place on earth, there is no pretentious air.  A simple way of life, in a place where family and friends would come to visit, that is the place I would pick to live.  That’s the stuff that dreams are made of.

 

Fairytale Writing -DS106 All the Way!

puffintransblog village-jim-grooms_John
Thanks to all for making my DS106 world real. I hope you enjoy the Fairy Tale of the journey so far. I created this while hanging out in my bungalow in the Village for the Bovine FairyTale Festival (hoping it counts for credits in both!)

Well – the week to stretch some skills has come a little heavier than others. Writing. Writing a fairy tale. I am much more verbose online than in person – but it usually is in trying to have an asynchronous discussion or going through steps in training – not stories and not fiction.

I have enjoyed the reading of the resources so abundantly provided by NanaLou. But I tend to enjoy the moment of the story and not diving in and trying to pull  it apart and figure out the meanings and inferences. Hans Christian Anderson – well I have always loved Danny Kaye and I remember the movie as a kid – but the dark and sad stories do become a little depressing when you don’t have the slapstick and singing to go along with them.

Rocky and Bullwinkle were a childhood favorite – so Fractured FairyTales high on my list. My Dad also had a teasing and dry sense of humor – so it was something we shared and I would listen to his stories. I was a fine arts specialist at the elementary level when is was in the classroom as one of my early career assignments. I would collaborate with classroom generalists as they would teach the writing and I would connect the fine arts in lessons. Students were guided in steps to story writing by taking things they knew or happened in their own lives and changing them up to fit a story. A theme along with a book was often retelling The Three Little Pigs from the wolf’s point of view. So I decided to use things that have happened in the last 6 months and follow the pattern of a fairy tale – so my version of a fractured tale – combining different things that may or may not be considered as being connected.

I was surprised the drafts came quickly. After reviewing – I think the Elves and the Shoemaker may be the format behind the DS106 and the Ed Administrator.

After recent weeks with design, visuals, audio, video – it seemed sort of plain and not too exciting to just have black and white words on a page.

I decided it was time to push my audio -not the editing part – but the part about not using my voice for recording. I have a few different mics – but haven’t been happy with the sound. Plus, I have to find a way that I don’t think anyone is listening when I am doing it – sort of like dancing – I can have lots of fun if I don’t think anyone is looking.

I used iRecorder – an app on my iPad – went down in the basement to my laundry room and closed the door. With the script on my ironing board – so I was standing – I hit record and read. The app then connects over wifi to my computer and transfers the file – pretty slick!

In Audacity I just cleaned up some gaps and breaths – not too much editing or effects. I found some piano music on Jamendo to add to the background and left it at that. No sound effects at this time.

In March of 2015 – Rochelle Lockridge had assembled the work of a radio collaboration on the NOIR theme. She presented it in a FlipBook. I was fascinated by the Flipbook format and have decided it will be a good way to assemble my family stories in a better way by allowing different media and narratives to be included – better than endless slideshows with music or audio. The format will give the chance to weave the stories together as our life actually unfolds. I opted for the buy – Rochelle’s reasoning of pros and cons made sense for what I needed. In order to start making use of my investment I thought the fairytale might be a good learning project.

A PDF is created first (at top of the post) – so that happened. I thought I was going to tackle inDesign – but after an hour gave that up! I will come back to that on another project. I opened iBooks and created there first and exported as the PDF.  This also had me look at font, layout and some graphics – so stayed in line with design week – even though that is in the Village.

This is okay – but the audio and GIF and some other things don’t come through. It is a way to distribute the writing.

I imported into FlipPDF Pro and began exploring. I found how to add the audio and video, get the GIF to be running. Then came exporting. I don’t want the $9.99/month subscription for hosting. @RockyLou22 embeds her flipbooks in her websites and had a way to share it with others. I spent about an hour with the direction – they don’t offer much because they really want you to upload to their pay site. After little success – I put it aside. I will go back and solve it, but wanted to get this post done while it was still a fresh memory. I will connect with @RockyLou22 for some hints when things slow down a little.

For Apple devices – it is in iBook form – even this is not smooth  or clean. It comes in Google and you have to ignore the screen and download – and then open in ibooks

 

click to download as iBook
click to download as iBook

I need to get the FlipBook version working…..maybe as the night goes on it will come. :-)

 

 

 

Old School Press Release with How to Embed in Blog

I am following my path on assignments – which is the #ds106 way isn’t it? I should be working on design and audio this week but keep getting sidetracked – but all with good outcomes. I am still using the assignment bank or creating them as new assignments to add to the bank.

puffintransblog #Burgeron106  Family Story Time happens weather permitting,under Dr. M’s treehouse near the sum19503134775_58e5801dc3_omer retreat trailer. Readings are for  the children. In order to keep some semblance of family time for the Burgeron’s and not be overwhelmed with festival visitors  recordings of  the story time are available for viewing and use.  To deal with the increase in traffic in the region almost all activities of the Bovine County FairyTale Festival are available for virtual attendance 24X7 to accommodate the needs of global (and perhaps extra terrestrial) participants.

The new Burgeron106  PR team saw the need to develop a press release  to help publicize the access to Artist in Residence information. As a member of the fledging team, I needed to learn the ins and outs of a press release. It is a much honored and long time tradition that has not changed as the world has changed. I first researched the news release format. It is simple and straight forward which is probably the toughest part – how to say what is important without lots of words and descriptions – not necessarily my strongest skill. Most recommendations were consistent with each other and I used this page guide while writing.

The following is a news release:

Another feature I worked on was embedding from Google into the blog. Part of this is my learning and trying to develop a strategy for content maintenance and usability. As of now, Google is providing me with options to keep content in order and accessible and only have to update in one space to create change no matter where posted or linked.  Currently in WordPress it is not as straight forward as Flickr or YouTube by just pasting the URL as a line of its own. However it is still an easy process.

Creating in Google and Embedding in WP. There are some steps to this so I created a screen cast thinking that would be easier than listing each step. It is a first run at using Camtasia for screen casts. You can get a trial version. I happen to have it as a perk from a workshop I took a couple of years ago and now am just getting around to using it. They have a great set of tutorials on their support site and many options.  I can see a lot of potential and ease of use, but after a week of video editing – left this down and dirty for this post. If it helps at least one other person – then it is a success. I do want to come back and create a ds106 tutorial contribution using it – just not sure what topic yet. I am also not embedding as a Google Video to make it more accessible to other ds106 participants but could have done so using the same process.

on to the rest of the week and hopefully back on track with Celtic design and Prisoner106 audio!!

 

 

Tutorials: Haiku About You

This first tutorial is on one of the assignments I created for this class.  This particular one is for the writing assigment “Haiku About You”.

To do this you first have to be familiar with the rules of writing a haiku.  These poems are short, 17 syllables in 3 lines.  The first and third lines have 5 syllables while the second has 7. It doesn’t have to rhyme, but if you choose to make it lines 1 and 3 are usually the ones that are rhymed.


 

For the purpose of this tutorial I’ll be using DS106 as inspiration:

DS 106

Once you’re in, it is for life;

It can not be mixed.

See? Easy right, the entire poem has 17 syllables, each broken down into 3 lines. I made the first and third line rhyme for effect.

Hope this helped!

Week 14: Tutorial

So there aren’t really pictures for this one, as much as general advice. This assignment asked you to write about your favorite or most memorable experience from your first year move in! I’m not going to talk about mine that much, but more of the process that I went through.

Think about what you liked from that day – I loved meeting my roommates, decorating my room, watching hurley do the Eagle Swoop.
What did you not like – my parents were a little anxious so I always felt like i was being rushed, the actual moving of boxes was not fun
Decide what approach you want to take and just free write! YAY!

Week 14: Tutorial 2

This project is pretty straight forward but hopefully this makes it easier.

1. Open up word.
2. Write your name vertically (see picture)    Screen Shot 2015-05-01 at 1.30.11 PM

 

3. Think of works that describe you. They can be big vocab words or simple words…whatever works! Type them in!

Screen Shot 2015-05-01 at 1.30.32 PM

4. Mess with the fonts so it’s a little bigger and then change the first letter of every word to be red!

Screen Shot 2015-05-01 at 1.30.57 PM

 

5. After that take a screenshot and save it as an image! Done!

Screen Shot 2015-05-01 at 1.31.02 PM

 

Monologue of a “Household” Tool

This assignment is worth 4.5 stars and the instructions can be found here.

I am the “household” tool that Billy Steel loves the most. I put household in quotes because I don’t think the average person would consider me an everyday item. Anyway, I am very involved in Billy’s life. He is always carrying me around, just about wherever he goes. Sometimes he conceals me under his jacket, other times he holds me out in the open. I suppose I can be pretty intimidating. Dangerous, too, if you give me ammunition. I mean figuratively of course. Or do I.. Anyway, I am rather bulky, but at the same time short and stout. I also have a handle, and a spout.If you see me in Billy’s hands, you’re going to want to walk the other way.

I wish Billy would take better care of me. I usually just get manhandled. He doesn’t seem to appreciate me for the valuable piece of equipment that I am. After all, it is I who always has to do the dirty work. Trust me, I do not enjoy it. Unfortunately, it’s in my nature- it’s what I was made for. I definitely feel like Billy overuses me though. You would be horrified if you knew how much work I’ve gotten in the past month alone. Sometimes I’m not even used the way I’m supposed to be. Whatever it takes to get the job done, I guess. I’ve definitely seen some things you should hope you never have to see. Can you guess what I am?