This week in the world of Daily Creates, cogdog expressed his frustration with lack of consistent participation with The Daily Create and issued a 7-day Daily Create Challenge. Rising to his challenge, I worked to complete the Daily Creates daily, everyday. And here’s what I came up with:

tdc184—Take a picture of a cloud and tell us what it looks like to you

Looks Like Trouble

I took this picture through the open sunroof of my car while sitting in traffic on my way home. I promise, traffic was dead stopped…I was NOT trying the photograph and drive simultaneously! The clouds were looking quite omnious as a storm was brewing. Looked like trouble to me…at least this was not going to make my commute home easy.  I didn’t see it initially, but cogdog commented that he could see a raven. Then I saw it…yet another sign of trouble!

tdc185—Draw a tornado

Fiery Tornado

This one was super easy and FUN! Referring back to the ds106 Packing List for web-based drawing tools, I found Flamepainter! What a cool concept! Selected my colors for a fiery theme, looped the cursor around a few times, and…easy, peasy…a fiery tornado. After uploading, it got the attention of a few participant that left complimentary comments, including a comment inquiring about Flamepainter. After publishing a tweet about it on Twitter, I think I turned a few excited followers on to a new tool to play with!

tdc186—Make a photo of an outdoor scene free of any human artifacts

Bee Couple

I so love the photograph challenges! It gives me an excuse to play with my camera. I am still amazed at the power of the zoom on my little red Canon PowerShot SX260. I was standing quite a distance away, using the max 80x zoom to capture these bees on a flower. I love how sharply focused the flower and the bees are while blurring the background, showcasing the subjects! In keeping with the instructions, there is not a single human artifact in this picture, foreground or background!

tdc187—Make a video of what is playing on channel 106 on your cable? (or make it up)

And we’re back to video again…but this one is easy, even to an amateur like me. I had to wait until late in the day to do this though, because I had the DirecTv guy working on hooking me up with a Whole Home DVR system and new equipment, so I didn’t have TV access most of the day. Using my iPhone camera to record this short clip, I discovered that channel 106 is not accessible to me! You see, channel 106 is ESPN-3D and it promptly reminded me that my TV is not 3D, so it could not play this channel. Maybe one day…

tdc188—Make an annoying 30 second pre-recorded telemarketing call 

This one left me a little stumped at first. Not to mention, I still avoid hearing my own recorded voice whenever possible! But I sucked it up in the interest of not letting cogdog down! Anyway, it finally occurred to me that credit repair services and debt reconciliation firms are constantly advertising too-good-to-be-true services that will magically “fix” your credit problems and stop debt collections. A shame, really, as I’m sure in the current economy, they find plenty of desperate victims to prey on. Using the SoundCloud app on my iPhone, I was able to record and upload this short call quickly,  once I had an idea to work with. I do admit using Audacity to edit out a segment that I didn’t like.

So there are 5 Daily Creates in a row. Sorry, cogdog, I still owe you yesterday’s TDC! No excuses, but in my defense the video session of ds106, combined with a concussion, quite frankly kicked my ass this past week! I’ll have it up later today and will amended this post then.

I would like to pont out that only 2 daily creates were required for ds106 students this week, so I more than doubled that requirement!

UPDATE!

tdc189—Philosophy Series: tell us about “Technology you can’t live without.”

Ok, so TECHNICALLY I can live with my iPhone. Unlike cogdog insulin pump, my health and existence does not depend on it. But it sure does make my life easier, keeping me organized, in touch, entertained and more productive. The millions of apps available make it fully customizable to suit my needs and desires. I’ve been an iPhone user for 5 years and I am so happy with it. I can’t wait to see what Apple has in store for the iPhone 5!