I’ve been amused by the #15secondshakespeare phenomenon, so I was pretty stoked when it showed up as a daily create. I actually thought I was going to do a different old standard… but then, in honor of making another trip around the sun, I picked this one. Honestly, I’m kind of hoping it’ll go viral. … Continue reading Happy birthday →

It’s 10 years since Katrina and Rita and the levees broke. If you haven’t read Lolis Eric Elie’s magnificent piece “The Whys” on The Bitter Southerner you really ought to. It resonates with my own meager experience rebuilding in New Orleans for a week, in that every person I met had a story to tell about … Continue reading Shelter from the storm →

I had the distinct pleasure last week of hosting Joe Lambert and Brooke Hessler from the Center for Digital Storytelling for a workshop at Kenyon. I believed that I was going in as the on-site tech support guy, so I didn’t think I was going to make a story. See,  I was going to be … Continue reading Tender Years →

I already drew a map which tells a story, so when TDC 1237 challenged us to make a map which explains nothing, it seemed like a fitting challenge. I was inspired by the map of “Super Bowl Wins By Country” on the TDC page, so here’s: Change in MLB Batting Average by US State 2005-2014 … Continue reading Put me in, Coach! →

TDC 1222 asks us to write a list of our regrets, and video ourselves throwing it away. I did it my way. (Kids, ask your parents. Or possibly your grandparents.) As you can tell from the watermark, I used WeVideo to make this. We’ll be using it next week at a workshop run by the … Continue reading My case, of which I’m certain →

Daily Create 1180 asked us to create a soundmap of our town. Instead of following the prompt as written, I picked one moment in my day – walking home in the early afternoon from a Krudas Cubensi concert at Kenyon College. It was early April – the trees were starting to bud, and you can … Continue reading Your feet’s too big →

We knew the previous owner of our house was an accomplished gardener, and all summer and fall we enjoyed the fruits of his labor – redbuds and crabapple trees, hostas and yucca flowers. But we’d chosen the house in May, and so we had no idea in our first April that the grove of walnut … Continue reading Sketch the trees and the daffodils →

I used to piss and moan about the cold. I took winter personally, as if the creeping cold and damp grey skies were a direct affront, some rude gesture designed to put me in my place. The winters of the last few years have disabused me of that notion. Something about 0 Fahrenheit, about -10 … Continue reading All alone in the moonlight →

I bought myself an Intuos tablet some time ago at work, on the grounds that I would use it for Big Serious Stuff like annotating screenshots or making screencapture videos. In theory, drawing with a mouse is hard and a pen interface should be easier. In practice, a tablet input is neither like a mouse … Continue reading Hamster Dance →

A visiting faculty member in Music found out that, back in high school, I played the flute. He fixed me with a stare like a dog gives someone who doesn’t play with a ball and said “well, why aren’t you in my wind ensemble?” I said “I used to play. It’s been 20 years!” The … Continue reading I’m not your handyman →

I agreed to give a mini-workshop on podcasting on Wednesday, to force myself to learn more about Audacity. Creating a bumper for DS106 Radio seemed like a good way to get started, and it’s a manageable amount of work for a 20-minute demonstration. Here’s the thing, followed by how I made it: First, I wanted […]

so much depends upon your fucking blue LeSabre parked in the rain in the school bus lane while the yellow station wagons pull around you. -With apologies to William Carlos Williams.

I’ve been intrigued by book spine stories for a while. I probably first saw them through LibraryThing’s contests (which they call bookpiles). Then recently, I was tagged in a wave of Facebook chain posts asking me to “list 10 books which have stuck with you.” I saw the call for TDC 984 while I was […]

Of my storytelling to date, I think this is the one I’m most proud of. But then, it’s about one of the things in my life I’m most proud of. I made this during a workshop we hosted for faculty at Kenyon. It’s out of the Berkeley Center for Digital Storytelling model. (The workshop was […]

.@damiengwalter I don’t think of Twitter as home. I think of it as the neighborhood my home is in, and I walk around talking to neighbors. — John Scalzi (@scalzi) September 13, 2014 I was intrigued by the “Draw Your Own Map of the Internet” project, and moreso when it became a Daily Create. But […]

Allright, I give. I’ve got a million things I want to say about DS106 Week 1, but if I don’t say something and hit publish, I’m never going to give myself permission to move on to week 2. Plus, I’m not part of the group conversation as long as these ideas are in my head. Rather than […]

I’m already on Season Two of The Wire, but I’ll try not to include too many spoilers for my comrades in #wire106. Ziggy Sabotka is a fascinating character – a runt, a screw-up, a dreamer. It was Episode Seven when the penny finally dropped how much James Ransone‘s  characterization reminds me of John Cazale‘s work … Continue reading I’m smart, and I want respect →

I must really be #4Life if I’m ready to suggest a new Daily Create. CALVINBALL! Mashup the pieces of at least 2 unrelated games into a new game. Take a picture. This picture actually comes courtesy of my son, who is seven. At that age, if Settlers of Catan Junior takes place on islands, then of … Continue reading It’s all in the game →

For TDC 951 Captain’s Log, 8/18/14. We are 3 days outside the Straits of Consumption. Bad weather off the Cliffs of Copyright; some debate about pulling into Safe Harbor to wait it out. But there’s little change in conditions predicted, so we agreed to proceed. Weather drills have been a Fair Use of crew time. Having […]

The Troll Quotes assignment is another reason I signed up for DS106. We see plenty of motivational posters, demotivational posters, and LOLCATS, but I was just tickled by the idea of a three-way culture hack. The gloss on this one is a little tortured (heh), but - The screengrab is from The Muppet Movie. I was […]

I’d been looking at The Daily Create and one exercise in particular stood out as something I might find fun. There used to be a lot of computer technical support involved in my job, so working on an ASCII art Blue Screen Of Death seemed like a natural. (And it’s Exercise 386 –  how propitious.) So […]

After years of hearing about DS106, and telling other people about it, maybe it’s time to actually try it out myself. I’ve gotten tired of dropping out of big corporate MOOCs because of their inflexible time frames and faceless approach to content delivery. I might like to learn in a community of makers. With any […]