you tube

One of my new favorite websites is youtube.com. They are one of a few sites, like googlevideo that are allowing people to upload and share videos. It used to be that only professionals were able to make movies, but over the years, videocameras, computer, and bandwidth are all getting to the point where any shmoe with a camera can get their video on the web. I think this is a good thing, though I'm not sure why. Why do i end up watching (and linking to) this bullplop? Certainly the Urban Ninja deserves to showcase his skills with the world... ... but I'm not sure about guys who learn to beatbox over the Gilligan's Island song. Impressive, but why?

Oh what a relief it is

After nearly two years of blogging, my mom finally found out about bullplop... I think when I started, my stories and language were a little more borderline, so I kept it hidden. Now that I've cleaned up my act a bit, I'm happy to include my mom as a reader of bullplop. Hi Mom. In fact, she's so impressed with my bullplop, that she's actually started her own blog, bullfizz. I'm not kidding. It'll be interesting to see what my mom does with her own blog. Welcome to the blogosphere, Mom!

Comprehensive Exam

For those of you who don't know, I've started a more professional blog on my professional website. Not this one- the one I have that isn't named after animal droppings. I'm hoping to establish a professional presence in the blogosphere. This same excerpt made it to that blog today. I've spent nearly every waking hour of the weekend working on my comprehensive exam. Assuming I pass, I have only one more class standing between me and a graduate degree. I'm glad, not only that I finished, but that I was able to sum up my position on eLearning so succinctly. It's nice to end on a high note.

As we proceed into the information age, things will continue to change, while others will stay the same. Internet-based teaching and learning will continue to be adopted in new and novel ways. Enthusiasts of new technologies will continue to overpromise and underdeliver. As learning professionals, we will learn from our successes and failures and as a community we will establish best practices for use and effectiveness. Corporations will try to reduce the cost of training while trying to get an informational advantage over their competitors. Instructional designers will continue to work for the sweet spot between the two. The learner will be confronted with staggering amounts of information and in the long run will remember most of what they need or enjoy by forgetting what they don’t. The instructor will always have a place in instruction. Their role will continue to change, and the technologies at their disposal will open up new possibilities and frustrations, but they will continue as mentors and guides to the future.

Comps Weekend

To complete my masters degree in educational technology, I have to take a comprenhensive exam. We get three case studies and three queries and have to answer one of each by noon on Monday. It's a lot of writing, and reasearching on the fly, and I have pretty much given up hope of doing anything else this weekend. As i write this, I've finished my case study and am now working on my query, or at least thinking about working on my query. The case study was pretty fun, though at this point I'm sick of working on these papers. My case study was a plan for a simulation that is based on MySpace. The papers are graded without the professor knowing who wrote the paper, so when I included a photo of my own MySpace page, i had to conceal my identity.

Great Minds

H's family was in town that week, which gave us a chance to hang out in La Jolla, visit the caves. My own mother came down for the weekend for a birthday party. We learned that the two mothers not only got along well, but that they had the same taste in jumpsuits.       

My sister rocks the Casbah

  Sunday was the fundraiser that little sister has been planning for months (and months and months) She helped raise over a quarter of a million dollars for pediatric AIDS as director of UCLA's dance marathon. I was most impressed not only with the large scale of the event, but also wittle sis's poise as she thanked everyone for their involvement and participation. Way to go! There were hundreds of people that danced for 26 hours in a row and even more that supported them. No breaks, no sitting down. Just go go go to raise money for little junky/slutty babies in need. Just kidding. Infants with AIDS is tragic. 

Why climb when you can ride?

Me and Karl
Originally uploaded by organically digital.

This goes along with the Noble Canyon ride. We stopped to suck up some much needed oxygen, and just before the camera clicked, I pounced on my big friend for a ride. I don't know why he wouldn't want to carry me all the way up the hill like this. I was quite comfortable.

The rest of the photoset has more pictures of us struggling, the beautiful reasons we do it and even a picture of yours truly shirtless.... ya know, for the ladies.

P lo

We went down to the Point Loma Seafood market to get some shrimp for dinner, and I couldn't help but notice how nice the moon looked over the dock.
P lo
Originally uploaded by SpeakEasy.

Noble Canyon

This weekend we went out on what we thought would be a 3-4 hour bike ride in east county. We were half right.. it took 6 hours plus an hour to get back home. We really worked hard for our downhill, but I'd say it was worth it. The ride itself was a 7 mile climb with about 7 miles coming back down. We climbed 1500 ft of elevation to reach almost 5200 ft above sea level. BJ is crashed in the road in one of them. This was after we had been walking for about 10 minutes... not him, he wanted to climb as far as he could. Glad one of us wasn't a wimp. I decided early that I didn't want to exhast myself.. I still had a birthday party coming up afterwards. We can't wait to go back and ride the trail- it was really an amazing run, but next time we'll be taking two cars so we don't have to make that terrible climb again.
02-11-06_1221.jpg
Originally uploaded by SpeakEasy.

02-11-06_1203.jpg

02-11-06_1203.jpg
Originally uploaded by SpeakEasy.

02-11-06_1110.jpg

02-11-06_1110.jpg
Originally uploaded by SpeakEasy.

02-11-06_0945.jpg

02-11-06_0945.jpg
Originally uploaded by SpeakEasy.

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It's my birthday today, and I'm celebrating in grand style. We're going out into east county to get in a good 3 hour bike ride, then my buddies are coming over to help me drink beer and bbq. sounds great, doesn't it?

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02-07-06_1633.jpg
Originally uploaded by SpeakEasy.

Irreverend

I'm performing the ceremony at a friend of mine's wedding in June. Minister Me, I still can't believe it. The night they asked me was the night I learned a shmoe like me could actually perform the ceremony. Since my mom spent 4 years at a seminary to earn her Masters in Divinity, I thought you really had to earn the title Reverend. not true. I got Reverend put in front of my name for $30 bucks. All you have to do is visit the site, fill out a few things, and about three weeks later, you get a card in the mail. Yes, I am a card-carrying holy man. Don't fuck with me. Apparently all I have to do now is contact someone in Louisiana to apply for a sort of one day pass of legal holiness. All due respect to the couple, but I think I'll forego the reception. I'm gonna go out and try and baptize and bury a few people while it's still legal. Kidding. Anyway, I guess there's no limit to the doors that can be opened through the internet.

With the credentials granted as part of your Rose Ministries ordination, you can legally provide all manner of religious services, and form a church, as a full or part-time business. You can qualify for tax-free status, and even accept money for your services.

If this edtech thing never pans out for me, it's nice to know I could start a cult. I've already found the banner for my homepage. Note: If you haven't already, you really should visit the site, if for no other reason than to check out how they mispell the word testament right in the middle of the second paragraph on the page.

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02-02-06_1037.jpg
Originally uploaded by SpeakEasy.

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02-01-06_1752.jpg
Originally uploaded by SpeakEasy.

Surf rider

Surf rider
Originally uploaded by SpeakEasy.