Archives Tonight, I finally had a chance and was awake late enough to listen to story time on ds106 Radio! It was not at all what I expected which made it that much better. I wasn’t sure I would be able to follow along for a full hour but the story drew me in almost as soon as it started, even though I didn’t even know what was going on. While the story drew me, tweeting back and forth with everyone else helped me understand what was going on better. It even helped bring some comedy to what is actually […]

Archives “Moon Graffiti” was really amazing to listen to. I never really knew how well sound could set the stage and tell a story. The music in the background to the recorded conversation really set the mood and intensified everything. It added suspense to the whole story. When they found bad damage, the music changed. During the speech at the end, the music took on a sad, eerie quality. Some of the music heard reminded me of the music played during movies and tv shows when people are in space or when there are aliens so it definitely made me […]

Archives For this assignment, I had to choose a song, find a video for it, and then record a clip of why it means so much for me. It was a toss up for me between “Drink a Beer” by Luke Bryan and “You Should be Here” by Cole Swindell. They honestly both mean a lot to me but for the same reasons. In the end, I chose “Drink a Beer” by Luke Bryan because it resonated just a little bit more to me. For those who haven’t heard the song or who aren’t country music fans, it’s a beautiful […]

Archives For this assignment, I had to take sound clips from throughout my day and combine them into one long clip. My family went snowboarding last weekend at Wintergreen Resort and I thought that would be a fun time to take the recordings. I don’t actually have a voice recorder or anything so I ended up recording the sounds as videos on my iPhone. Then, I used audacity to upload them and combine them together. I actually had to download an Audacity add-on in order to use the sound from the videos so that was an extra step. Once I […]

Archives This week was all about the visual stuff. I had a lot of fun with it and felt more comfortable with a lot of it than I have with some of the other stuff we’ve done so far. My first step this week was to write a blog about my previous experience with photography. There really wasn’t a lot to write about since I’m not very experienced. If I can’t take the picture with my phone, it probably won’t get taken. The next couple blogs were the specified assignment blogs. First, Love at First Shot And also the spy themed one, Who Said […]

Archives To complete a PhotoBlitz, we had 20 minutes to take as many of the photos as we could on our given list. Sounds easy, right? Wrong! Some of those choices were just not simple. I can honestly say I hit next quite a few times before I found a list I thought I could accomplish and I still missed one 🙁 But here it goes! Starting time: any type of picture of a newspaper: Picture from floor level: Photo that represents the passage of time: Crowd Scene: This one I couldn’t get :(( Photo of water: Picture that reminds […]

Archives The purpose of this assignment was to choose a photo, turn it into a stencil, and see how it changed, especially the focus. For the original photo, I chose one of a sunflower. It even has a little bee on it! I don’t have Photoshop or anything so I found this program online. My finished product was very different from what I expected! The sky, the other flower, and even the leaves from the main flower disappear. What I really enjoyed was that the bee from the original can still be seen in the stencil! The focus is still on the […]

Archives All things considered, my experience with photography is pretty limited. Of course when I was younger, I used the disposable camera and even had a real camera that required actual film and had to be taken to walmart or a pharmacy to get the pictures developed. I even had a polaroid that spit out the picture right away and you had to shake it. Boy did I love that thing! As technology moved on, so did I. As a teenager I got a nice(at the time) digital camera and actually held on to it for a couple years. The […]

Archives This week, we had to complete 3 Daily Creates. These were more fun for me because I liked the prompts more than I have some of the others. The first one was to post something that happened in 1856. Not super exciting but I did learn from it. Who knew so many different things happened that year! @ds106dc #tdc1856 Traité de Paris (1856) pic.twitter.com/4mjswkBBV4 — Krystal Heflin (@k_heflin) February 6, 2017 The second one I did was to make the internet beautiful again. To me, this could be interpreted in a LOT of different ways. I chose to post […]

Archives For this assignment, I had to create a collage to show off the love I have for my pet. Because this involves my baby girl Athena (aka Agent A), I jumped at the opportunity. Goodness knows I had more than enough pictures to choose from! To put the collage together, I chose from pictures I had stored on my phone and used the iPhone app, Pic Stitch. It was harder than I thought to choose my favorites to use since I have so many! I managed to narrow it down to 5 in the end and the collage came […]

Archives I chose this particular assignment simply because I have so much fun creating these. Mixing a photo, a quote, and a person-all different but similar enough characters that its hard to figure out who actually said the quote is fun and challen...

Archives This was an easy assignment for me because my two best friends immediately came to mind. Meet Kat and Mike. This picture was taken at their wedding 3 years ago and while a lot has changed since then, their obvious love for one another has not. This is the classic story of high school sweethearts. It drives Mike crazy but I always like to take credit for their love story. We were sophmores in high school when the guy I was dating mentioned that Mike was interested in my very best friend, Kat. I set them up on a […]

Archives Well this was quite a week for me and it really felt like the first dive into what this class is all about. I started with a little background research and the history of spies on film and even watched a few examples! The History of Spies Next, I watched a video clip on how to shape stories and even applied it to one of our spy themed movies. How to Shape a Story My next step was to create a character for our theme to follow through the class. Meet Agent A For those of you who have […]

Archives One of the writing assignments I chose to do this week was called “Letter from out of the Blue”. This was a fun one for me because it had been so long since I mailed a letter, much less received something in the mail that wasn’t junk or a bill! The assignment was to sit down and write out a letter to someone, longhand. Then we had to put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it, and actually mail it via “snail mail”. I chose to write the letter to my little sister even though I can […]

Archives This week we had to watch a YouTube video called The Shapes of Stories. This video features Kurt Vonnegut showing us that all stories fall into categories and the flow of the story can basically be drawn as a line on a graph. I actually found this to be pretty fascinating and tried it out on a few of my favorites. For this example I used the Spy Kids movie we watched for class. This movie falls into his “Man in Hole” category where someone gets into trouble and then gets out of it again. In the beginning, there is an […]

Archives It feels like Secret Agents and Spies have been around forever but the truth is that they didn’t really show up in movies until the early 1960’s and tv in 1964. The movie I chose to watch this week was Spy Kids. It really took me back to my childhood! In the movie, the parents of two kids are kidnapped and the kids discover that their parents are actually retired secret agents. These 2 kids then go on a mission to save them and keep a secret project out of the bad guys hands. At the end of the movie, […]

Archives For me, these got a little harder this week. It was a busy week for me so it was tough time-wise but they also seemed to take a bit more thought than last week. I managed 4 though! @ds106dc #tdc1846 I wish the rest of the gang was here, Zoinks! pic.twitter.com/JaMTEcKt3i — Krystal Heflin (@k_heflin) January 28, 2017 This was probably my favorite as I am huge Scooby Doo fan! My family still calls me a child because of the cartoons I watch. @ds106dc #tdc1848 #ds106 my secret creative weapon is this kid. My niece has the greatest imagination […]

Archives Everyone has someone they admire. I recently had to opportunity to hear Tony Nicely, the CEO of GEICO speak and he really inspired me. “Life is too short to work in any company where you cannot be happy”-Tony Nicely Mr. Nicely is from a small town in West Virginia and despite his struggles early in life, he considers himself “the luckiest man alive”. He was down on his luck and struggling financially when he first got the job at GEICO at the age of 18. It was only supposed to be a temporary job. After a year, he was […]

Archives Counting syllables is not my strong point but these should each be 5/7/5   Secret Agent Spy Nobody can ever know Always telling lies   James Bond 007 Jason Bourne is on the run Holmes solves mysteries   Jack Reacher, military Government conspiracy Espionage at it’s best.    

Archives Day 187 in The Squirrel Wars My human host (I know her as “Mom”) still has no idea of my true identity. I continue to play the doting dog by night and take up my real duties when she leaves for this thing she calls “work”. Today, when she let me outside to “go potty” (so demeaning!) I saw one of Dr. Squirrel’s minions. Unfortunately, I was unable to act since Mom was home. I barked as a warning but did nothing else. Once she left for work, I used my post in sunspot on the bed to keep […]

Archives Or as she is more commonly known, Athena. Athena has been an agent for O.S.A.A, or Organization of Secret Agent Animals for 8 years. Her mission is to rid the backyard of Dr. Squirrel and his evil minions. It all started when she was just a pup. She was outside running around when she tried to play with a squirrel she came across. Mr. Squirrel was having none of it! He ran up a tree and when Athena continued trying to play with him, he took an acorn from his winter stash and dropped it right on her little […]

Archives Well we made it to the end of our second week, congrats! I know for me, it was a little bit of a wake up call as far as the amount of work there was. However, I made it without struggling too much so I know I’ll be okay as the workload continues to increase. The first order of business this week was to help plot the course. I was assigned to the photography/visual category. I came up with an example I liked and the reasoning behind it:  I feel like this is a great example for the secret […]

Archives This a choice from the Writing Assignment bank. It was an easy choice for me because while I don’t dream that often, when I do dream it is often a recurring one. The one that immediately comes to mind is probably my personal version of a pretty common dream. The whole dream takes place at the high school I went to: I get to school, walk up to my locker, and all of I sudden I realize that I can’t remember the combination! I go to the guidance counselor to get the combination for some reason and then I […]

Archives This week, we were introduced to The Daily Create. Here is my very first one! The objective was to come up with a slogan or platform that a dog would have as President. Meet my brother’s puppy, Oshiebear, now known as Mr. President. @ds106dc freedom of treats, bacon and all puppers to have a safe and loving home- Your Pawresident of the United State#tdc1839 pic.twitter.com/LEvTtkoLiq — Krystal Heflin (@k_heflin) January 21, 2017 My second DC of the week actually taught me something new. Apparently there is a bookmark that will print out a YouTube video. Being the animal lover […]

Archives For this assignment, I chose a visual project. The purpose of the assignment is to take a selfie with your pet. This is right up my alley because I’m a member of the “selfie generation” and my dog is pretty much my favorite person 🙂 We had kind of a rough start because she assumed that since I was holding her, that meant it was time for kisses! She settled in and we practiced with a few filter shots:   Finally, I felt we were prepared for the finished product. Hope you like it!

Archives For this assignment, we had to pick a song, take the lyrics out, and record a short (30 seconds or less) audio clip. The clip needed to be enough that people would be able to guess the song from it. I’ll be honest, a big part of why I chose this particular assignment is because it seemed like one of the few in this category that I was capable of doing. Not to give any hints, but I also thought it would be a good assignment to use to tie in the “mission106” theme! The hardest part was trying […]

This first week of class has given me a lot of firsts! My very own website/blog, which, by the way, was way harder to set up than I thought it would be! My first ever blog post: Media Introductions The media introductions post also included my first youtube video and first soundcloud recording. I had …

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I love the secret agent theme of this class. Its such a broad genre when you really think about it and gives us a lot of options to work with. While I love a good international spy thriller like James Bond, my personal interest really lies more along the lines of Maxwell Smart and Agent …

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Austin Kleon’s post was very inspiring to me. I think he makes a lot of good points and while some of his advice seems a little played out to me, its still good advice. While all of his points are important, the one that really calls out to me personally is #10-“Stick Around”. I have …

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Ready to get started?! Hi everyone! #ds106 — Krystal Heflin (@k_heflin) January 16, 2017