San Diego 2010

Originally uploaded by dr.coop

Well, I haven’t blogged in a while, so I’m just going to try and see if I can still do it. I went to the SITE (Society for Information Technology and Teacher Ed) conference last week. C was able to tag along since she can work from anywhere, and what better place to work from than San Diego in spring. So we hung out in the late afternoon and evenings, and I attended the conference sessions during the morning and afternoon.

There wasn’t much special about this conference. It was interesting, however, just a bit different from the usual conferences I attend. This one focused on teacher education and the use of technology in those programs. I’m not in teacher education, but most of the topics the sessions covered were relevant to regular education as well. I can say that I learned a few new things, but this was a bit of a stressful trip.

The biggest thing that stressed me out was being away from school for so long and not having internet access. Sure the conference had wifi and the hotel did as well, but my school doesn’t pay for internet access when on trips likes this. So basically that means as an online instructor, I have to cancel class for the week or pay out of my own pocket. $15 x 4 days = $60. On principle I refused to do that. If my college feels that not being in contact with the students and work for a whole week is the best solution, why not give it a shot.

Let me just say not answering an email (I get them on my phone) from a student is akin to just walking by someone in a grocery store who has just dropped a bunch of oranges. You just have to stop and help pick them up. Normally if I’m busy, I will just hold those emails until I get in front of a computer, but I had to answer on the phone or while I was at the conference since that is when I had wifi on my netbook. It was a pain in the butt. I couldn’t really concentrate on the sessions because I had a constant stream of email. I tried to ignore them, but I couldn’t. So much for me proving a point. I ended up losing all around on that deal. Stressed the whole first day and night I was there, and then eventually broke down and spent my own money on wifi access to work for two days. Skipped half a day of the conference to work the fourth day. Seems so pointless for the school to pays hundreds of dollars for me to attend a conference, but not pay for something as essential as wifi and parking.

Yeah, don’t get me started on parking. I spent $60 on shuttles and cabs, which the school will reimburse, instead of just parking at the airport for $24. That extra $36 could have paid for 2 days of internet in San Diego. Come on GCC. It’s 2010. We teach online and hybrid classes now. You pay for subs for regular teachers, but you make me pay to teach while I’m away? That’s so not fair.

The story of Asila is an interesting one. She’s the rainbow bear in the picture. I bought her at a gay pride celebration in Las Vegas many years ago. I want to say about 11 years, but I can’t really be certain. I was dating someone who lived there at the time, and I traveled there often. Asila became my travel companion. She’s been to many different places in the US including Provincetown, Denver, San Diego, Seattle, Albuquerque, Fort Lauderdale, San Francisco, and New York City.

Initially the plan was to keep a travel blog of Asila’s adventures, but 10 years ago mobile blogging wasn’t as big or as easy to do. I managed to take tons of pictures of Asila in all these great cities, but getting the photos into digital format and posted on a blog was time consuming. I never followed through with it.

Every so often I come across a stack of photos and as I flip through them, often a picture of Asila will pop up. She’d be sitting on a bar next to an iced cold one with a bar sign in the background indicated where we were visiting. If only I could find all those old photos now; I’m sure it would tell a great tale. Like the time I took Asila camping and it turned into a “where’s Asila” game. Every picture we took that weekend had her in it somewhere, hanging from a tree, propped on a shoulder, holding the keg pump, etc. 100+ campers and everyone knew Asila. It makes me wish she could tell her own story. Boy would she have a story to tell.

That’s unlikely to happen, so I’m just going to have to continue to tell it for her because naturally her story is my own. It should be a lot easier now with the advent of better mobile phone cameras and Posterous, where I post my mobile stuff. You can visit: http://soul4real.posterous.com or click the mobile web tab on my website. Check in an see our next adventure. St. Patty’s Day is right around the corner and rumor has it that Asila will be doing a dive bar tour on her bicycle.

Last Friday I was traveling, so I was going to miss this month’s CyberSalon at Buffalo Wild Wings in Mesa, AZ. I hadn’t missed a gathering yet, so I was just a little bummed I may be missing this one. But instead of missing, I fired up Tokbox and invited everyone to join me live online in a video chat.

“Tokbox is a free service that lets you talk with your friends over live video. Here’s how it works: you sign up and we give you a link. When you want to talk with anyone, just give them the link – they click and you chat” (Tokbox).

Tokbox worked great, except no one could hear me. I could hear them though. I ended up having to type in the textbox while they all talked. We had 6 people online at once. There was a slight delay in the video, which made it a little awkward, but still usable. The video quality was pretty good too.

So technically I did not miss hanging out with my buds while I was away in California, but next time I’m going to be there in person for sure.

IMG_2211

Originally uploaded by nooccar

I’ve been working in the Maricopa Community College District now for 10 years, and I’ve met plenty of people along the way. Some of these people it’s a real honor to work with and others are a joy to call colleagues, but very few are people I’d want to hang out with after hours. That all changed this year when I started hanging out with the Cyber Salon crew once a month. They are true geeks through and through, and before I started hanging out with them, I’d never been in a bar with my laptop before.

Now we take over bars with our geekiness. We just come in, set up shop and have a good time. All we require is wi-fi and cold beer. I’ve learned so much from those pictured and a few other Cyber Salon members not pictured, and I’m really proud to call them friends. Can’t wait for the next Cyber Salon in June.

I spoke with Baldwin about her action adventure novels. Her first romance, Focus of Desire, was just published, so I thought I’d give that a try. She signed it and asked that I email her to let her know how I liked it. I read it on the plane ride home yesterday, so I’ll be sure to do that.

Goldsby was equally nice having posed several times for a photo. I grabbed her coming out of a reading at the Vixen for my first shot, but my photographer (Paffy) failed me and captured me with my eyes closed. She looked amazing of course. Then we ran into her again at Now Voyager and I got this shot. I hope she doesn’t think I was stalking her. lol.

Anyway, we spoke briefly about her work and the possibility of African American characters in future novels. She says her next novel out in 2008 will have a Black character, although she will need to do some research on that. I understood exactly what she was talking about. I had a similar conversation with Marianne K. Martin about a couple of Black characters she wrote in her novel, Mirrors. She did a fabulous job of portraying the stereotypical Black woman in contrast to the other extreme, a bi-racial Black woman who some may consider “not black enough.” It was a really interesting dynamic, and for a woman who is not Black, I thought she did a great job.

I can’t wait to see what Goldsby comes out with next. But it turns out she already has three other books published besides one of my favorites, Such a Pretty Face. I need to hurry and catch up. If you’re into reading fiction, I highly recommend reading something from any of the four authors I mention here. Such a Pretty Face is real, yet hilarious. Baldwin is the master of action/adventure, rivaling even Rad, who writes everything superbly. And Martin is just great. I don’t even know why, but her books are just different, deeper maybe, and real.