PCWM - Blogging 101

For those who attended my Blogging 101 session at PodCamp WesternMass on Saturday, Mar 30, here is the slide I used as my point of reference to answer your questions.




In addition to the slide, I had previously created a series on basic blogging which covered similar ground.

You can find that series here:
http://steves2cents.blogspot.com/2010/10/basic-blogging-or-blogging-100101102.html


The "Fire Circle Story" in both text and audio (podcast) versions can be found here
text =  http://steves2cents.blogspot.com/2005/11/fire-circle-story.html
audio = http://steves2cents.blogspot.com/2006/10/fire-circle-story.html


If you have questions on any of this material, feel free to contact me and I'll do my best to answer your question.


My photo essay to recap this event can be found here
http://steves2cents.blogspot.com/2013/04/pcwm-granted-permission-to-110.html

#pcwm

New Sculpture Park Opening in Franklin

The art scene in Franklin is going to get kicked up a real big notch with this new project! I love the idea of it. Just imagine what it will be like to visit where the pool once upon a time was...

View it in your browser. New Sculpture Park in Franklin We need your help. The Town of Franklin has approached the Franklin Art Center to combine their resources in order to create a unique, and first of it's kind, Sculpture Park. The town has agreed to donate the land, the landscaping, and insurance. Construction of a parking lot is already underway as is the clearing of the land. Franklin Art Center will be responsible for contacting artists and sculptors, delivery, and design of placement of 10/15 pieces of sculpture, depending on size and complexity. Franklin Art Center has also agreed to approach the business and the community to try and raise money in order to make this an original and distinctive park, for the enjoyment and pleasure of the residents of Franklin, schools and surrounding areas. All donations raised will go to the artists involved to assist with transportation, the construction of foundations if necessary, and installation of these one of a kind works of art. Please help Franklin develop this special space that we call all enjoy. Even the smallest donation will help. Thank you. Donate now → More from the Center Know A Sculptor We are also looking for work to be on display at the park. Contact us now → Franklin Art Center The team at Franklin Art Center wants to extend a hearty 'thank you' to all of our wonderful students. You're made the Art community shine, and we want to keep that going! Learn about the Center →  Friend on Facebook   Forward to Friend  Copyright © 2013 Franklin Art Center Our mailing address is: 5 Main St Franklin Art Center Franklin MA 02038

Franklin Art Center · 5 Main St · Franklin, MA 02038

Deja Brew: Uncle Jemima Maple Barley Wine

Instead of filling the kettle with water, we started with some fresh maple sap this time.

maple sap siphoning into the kettle

"Uncle Jemima Maple Barley Wine" is reported to be a good beer when done this way. My first in person try at it was last night and other than getting the sap into the kettle, the steps were just like other brewing nights.

What will come out of the kettle when we return to bottle in three weeks should be goodness!


From the DejaBrew beer listing

Uncle Jemima Maple BW: Created by Mike & Nick for your sipping pleasure. Very smooth, light maple flavor

What's on Your HappyList?

I haven't been as current with Ze Frank as I think I should. He does make me think




What is on your happy list?

waking up
getting up
taking on new challenges
I can do that
we can do this together
we can make it happen

The snow line

The snow is gradually disappearing. This view into the backyard shows the progress.

snow line recedes

As the sun moves around the house during the day, the snow line recedes.

Such changes are subtle.

Are you patient enough for these kinds of changes to take place?

To the well

Did my long run on Sunday out on the Franklin roads. My long run build up had been broken several weeks ago with the blizzard. I am just now able to start the build up again.

Jordan Road

4.5 miles on Sunday provided the opportunity to get to the well.

go to the well

One of my favorite routes. How can you not like going to the well to start a long run build up again?

Amanda Palmer: "The art of asking"

Don't make people pay for music, says Amanda Palmer: Let them. In a passionate talk that begins in her days as a street performer (drop a dollar in the hat for the Eight-Foot Bride!), she examines the new relationship between artist and fan.

You're invited to "PodCamp WesternMass #5"

		I'd like to share this event with you! PodCamp WesternMass #5 Saturday, March 30, 2013 from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM (EDT) Holyoke Community College (HCC) 303 Homestead Ave Kittredge Center Holyoke, MA 01040 View Map   Attend       Want company? Share this event!

Note: I am helping to organize this event

call and response

listen to ‘call and response’ on Audioboo

Time to get your tickets!

Ticket sales for PodCamp WesternMass end on Monday, March 25th.

Why so early?
Since you as a ticket purchaser are helping to sponsor the event, we want to make it a good one for you. Good as in enough food, drink, snacks during the day. Enough t-shirts for attendees.
To that we need to know the all important planning number, how many are coming to PodCamp?

What will happen at PodCamp?
There will be learning and sharing and networking and all kinds of goodness! Learning about the new technologies mixed with the social part of social media in real life.

How much will it cost?
It is a great bargain. $30 for about 8 hours of learning, that is less than $4 per hour. Where would you pay so little for so much learning? Students get a ticket at half price ($15).

What is the schedule?
The schedule for the day is flexible. The photo here shows the session wall during the 2nd event at Westfield St College. Sessions can be added and changed to meet the needs and answer questions of the attendees. With the event scheduled to start at 9:00 AM, the Welcome desk will be open about 8:30 AM. Get your name tag, have some coffee, etc., propose a session or encourage some one to do a session.

#PCWM2 session wall

Should I go?
Yes, you should be there!

PodCamp WesternMassPodCamp is an un-conference about social media and online networking. It is an open and collaborative event with discussions and interaction from attendees. Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join. Some sessions will be planned ahead of the event, but plenty of spaces will be open for the topics YOU want to discuss and learn. Tickets are $30 ($15 for students), but all are expected to participate and/or present. You can participate by giving a presentation, demo, or joining into another cooperative event, being on a panel/roundtable, or in other ways helping out on event day.
Saturday, March 30 at Holyoke Community College

For registration and additional information visit http://pcwm5.eventbrite.com/
(Note I am helping to organize this event!)

Deja Brew: cap codes

When I posted about our bottling efforts, I neglected to include the all important cap codes. Yes, we save money on fancy labels and use a marker to code the cap with the bottle contents. A quick and easy way to know what you have to drink and helps to ensure that each case has the proper number of each (depending upon how we do the bottling).

beer cap codes

Anyway, the cap codes for our recent batch are as follows:

G = Goibniu = A Great rendition of a true Scottish Ale 

LB = Ludwig Brau = Nice and smooth Octoberfest style beer… Yep, ACBBD 

SN = SN Robust Porter = A dark porter with a creamy head, and malty smooth finish 

SR = Steel Rail Pale Ale = Knock off of BBC's flagship beer. An excellent brew 

blank = Saranick's Black & Tan = It defies description. A knockoff of Saranac's black & tan. Stout & lager hybrid

There was no cap code for Ron’s Redhook ESB = Our version of the Redhook ESB. This is the kettle we had the problem with that will be remade sometime (and we did have a cap code designated but ended up not using it).


note: the empty bottles are stored bottoms up! This helps to keep them clean for reuse next time.

Prior posts about "the Band of Brewers" and Deja Brew can be found here
http://steves2cents.blogspot.com/search?q=deja+brew&max-results=20&by-date=true

signs of spring for St Patrick's Day

Busy day here in Franklin today. Some green is starting to show for St Patrick's Day

sign of spring against the snow

In addition to the family food shopping and dinner duty for this evening, there are some events around Franklin that I want to get to.

1 - The Community Gardens. From 9:00 AM until noon there will be spring garden work and demonstrations
http://www.franklincommunitygardens.org/2013/03/spring-garden-celebration.html

2 - Help celebrate the solar installation at the First Universalist Society at 11:45 AM
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2013/02/solar-anniversary-celebration.html

3 - Franklin celebrates it 235th birthday at the Historical Museum from 1:00 to 4:00 PM
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2013/03/three-franklin-events-for-sunday-mar.html

bringing home the beer

Another night at DejaBrew to bottle what we brewed a couple of weeks ago. Some technical difficulty this time with one of the bottling stations through our bottling rhythm into a tizzy. Was the one keg really not good or was the delay the real contributor to the problem? Not sure. First time this occurred. We did leave with 5 of the 6 beers. The other kettle will get remade sometime soon.

Deja Brew - finished beer to take home

Related posts on our Deja Brew experiences through the years can be found here

I don't want to

but I don't have much of choice now do I?

And that is a real rhetorical question.

Google just announced  that they are killing Google Reader

House cleaning? Forcing more work when I could use more integration!

But it has been coming. Why else would there have been no move to integrate it better with Google +

So now there are choices to make as I choose another service

Feedly?

Feedburner on the firing line soon according to FeedBlitz

Oh well, I have some work to do

If you use Google RSS Reader, what are you going to do?

The 5th PodCamp WesternMass

yes, five - as in fingers on one human hand. as in toes on one foot.

There will be learning and sharing and networking and all kinds of goodness! Learning about the new technologies mixed with the social part of social media in real life.

It is a great bargain. $30 for about 8 hours of learning, that is less than $4 per hour. Where would you pay so little for so much learning?

You should be there!



PodCamp WesternMass

PodCamp is an un-conference about social media and online networking. It is an open and collaborative event with discussions and interaction from attendees. Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join. Some sessions will be planned ahead of the event, but plenty of spaces will be open for the topics YOU want to discuss and learn. Tickets are $30 ($15 for students), but all are expected to participate and/or present. You can participate by giving a presentation, demo, or joining into another cooperative event, being on a panel/roundtable, or in other ways helping out on event day.

Saturday, March 30 at Holyoke Community College

For registration and additional information visit http://pcwm5.eventbrite.com/
(Note I am helping to organize this event!)

"a patch of sky"

From the interview Kritsa Tippett has with Natalie Batalha:

Ms. Batalha: So what we're doing is we're measuring the brightnesses of stars. We're not actually taking pictures of stars and planets. We're measuring their brightnesses. And in this one patch of sky that we're looking at, like you said, there are millions of stars, literally 4.5 million stars near the Milky Way, the plain of the Milky Way, a patch of sky that's about the size of my open hand, you know, stretched out in front of me. 

And we've chosen about 150,000 that we're monitoring. So we collect the light through a space telescope and that light is sent down to a detector, which is just an array of CCDs. It's exactly what you have in your digital camera when you take a picture. And those detectors are measuring the amount of light that falls on them from these 150,000 stars. So we take a measurement of all these stars simultaneously once every 30 minutes, and we've been doing that for three and half years [laugh]. 

And the point is, you take these measurements and you want to do it without blinking because eventually some of those stars are going to have planetary systems that are orbiting and aligned in such a way that the planet will pass directly between our telescope and the star. And when it does that, that planet is going to cast its shadow out into space and that shadow is going to sweep across our telescope and our detectors are going to perceive that as a dimming of light. So that's how we're inferring the existence of the planets. Those signals are tiny and they last, you know, a couple of hours and they repeat once every year. So you really do need patience. You need to stare at these things consistently without blinking waiting for these signals to occur.

So that is "a patch of sky that's about the size of my open hand"
Yes, your hand, stretch it out and see how big it is.

Listen to the whole interview here:  http://www.onbeing.org/program/on-exoplanets-and-love/5029

Compass Lite

From my RSS Feed from TechCocktail I find this

Compass Lite is a free web app that asks users to choose between  “Me?” or “Not Me?” by way of a visual slider that presents a set of character traits and/or tasks. This winnowing down leads users to an interactive display of career opportunities that match the user’s personality, organized by education level.  Detailed information about careers, salary ranges, career outlook, and academic programs are offered as well. 

This is a far cry from searching through lists of majors and careers, or making career decisions based on projected salary. It’s easy to lose track of time choosing between “Me?” or “Not Me?” and before you know it, you’re presented with an interactive dashboard tailored to your answers – with actionable recommendations.

As an experiment of one, I tried the survey answering me or not me for each photo. Quick and easy, it seemed to peg me pretty well.

How does this work for you?

Note: it seems to require a login via your Facebook account. I didn't find a way other than that. It does let you select how you'll broadcast the updates (and for the trial I selected "only me").

You can try Compass Lite here   https://compasslite.woofound.com/sign_in

fresh snow shadows

The whiteness and shadows are calling me

I took this photo from the warmth of the house but need to get out into the sunshine for a walk and find more photos

snow and shadows

what are you up to today?

4" ovenight

two days in a row, wow!

shoveled three times yesterday about an inch or so each time. Mostly heavy wet snow although the last shift, last night, the snow had changed to a more powdery version. Much easier to move.

Woke this morning to 4" in the driveway from the overnight activity.

Still powdery but with 4" took more time to move.

I turned around after clearing the driveway only to find it was already white behind me!

More shoveling scheduled for later

Take it easy when you do your shoveling. Be careful if you do venture out to drive!

work @home

There are benefits to working from home, especially in bad weather.

snow covering the deck today

I save an extended commute time and use that time to be more productive

I can keep current with the shoveling and that provides a good physical break between meetings

Marissa Meyer created quite a conversation around remote work with her comments last week. If you missed that, Scott Berkun has a good summary of what he has seen on this topic.

http://scottberkun.com/2013/grand-summary-of-posts-on-remote-work-yahoo/


Where do you stand on remote work?

Learning events on the horizon

What is Tech Day Camp?
Full day of workshops from experts in their field, especially geared towards the small business owner, non-profit organizations and YOU!!

Saturday March 23 at Tri-Country RVT in Franklin, MA

For registration and additional information visit http://techdaycamp.com/



PodCamp WesternMass

PodCamp is an un-conference about social media and online networking. It is an open and collaborative event with discussions and interaction from attendees. Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join. Some sessions will be planned ahead of the event, but plenty of spaces will be open for the topics YOU want to discuss and learn. Tickets are $30 ($15 for students), but all are expected to participate and/or present. You can participate by giving a presentation, demo, or joining into another cooperative event, being on a panel/roundtable, or in other ways helping out on event day.

Saturday, March 30 at Holyoke Community College

For registration and additional information visit http://pcwm5.eventbrite.com/
(Note I am helping to organize this event!)


SOBCon 2013

What is SOBCon?

SOBCon is a 2-day interactive business “think tank” that moves ideas to action. Attendees increase their business IQ in an engaging and positive learning environment, take away actionable and measurable business plans, and create a network of connections to drive their companies forward. Want to know more about this "inspiration incubator", and why YOU should attend our next event? 

For registration and additional information visit http://www.sobevent.com/
(Note - This is one event I will be at and one I would rather not miss again having missed the very first one.)

Where is your imagination running?

A friendly reminder that I write in a few other places so if it is quiet here, it may be because I have been too busy elsewhere. (Yes, an opportunity for me to better manage my time. It is a constant challenge as you, I am sure, are well aware.)

So what is out there today?

A call to share the snow art that you find in the neighborhood
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2013/03/snow-art.html

A call for sparkplugs to help with Healthy Futures Franklin
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2013/03/healthy-future-franklin-seeks-community.html

A Friday night out with food for a good cause!
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2013/03/calling-all-foodies.html

A newly found poem. In that when I came up to our bed room, I found Dolores' exercise pants in a neat little pile and my imagination ran with it!
http://www.quietpoet.com/2013/03/sherku-exercise.html


What are you doing today?

The power of music (video)

Yes, quite powerful... I think I posted this before but it is worth posting again

bag pipes for Friday (video)

The Providence Journal did a nice piece on the Providence Police Pipes and Drum




They played a military medley recently and that video is here