Resurrection Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, I posted to this blog on a regular basis. It was mostly a journal about my life in Japan and all the extraordinary people I met there. Then, after moving back to the US to attend graduate school at the School for International Training (SIT) in Brattleboro, VT, this blog started to lose some momentum, but posts continued to slowly trickle out. When I moved to San Francisco in 2008, the posts… just kinda… stopped.

Now, after many years of silence, I’m ready to resurrect this sucker with a new goal and focus. I want to use this online space to connect with other educators, music lovers, art aficionados, pranksters, and anyone else who takes the time to read whatever dribble I put here. 

I credit my interest in this resurgence to Will Richardson, an author and advocate for personal learning networks. A few years ago, I read his TED Book titled Why School?, which caused me to take a step back and examine the methodologies I was using with my students. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in 21st century education. More recently, I read his book titled Personal Learning Networks, which has really lit a fire in me to be more active online to make useful connections around my passions.

Hence, I plan to post some of my lesson plans and materials, in hopes of connecting and collaborating with other educators. There’s no sense in teaching in an isolated classroom while the bulk of human knowledge is accessible online. I also want to share some of my favorite musical discoveries. I’ve been an avid listener my entire life, and I’m sure someone out there has similar tuneful tastes. My day job affords me the opportunity to join university art classes in a variety of subjects, so I’d like to share some of the epiphanies I experience. I’m sure there are folks out there that know much more than me and can further my understanding. Finally, the internet is a crazy place, so I need a place to rant about my crazy Bay Area Burning Man friends and post pictures of my cat, right?

There’s really no telling where this blog will go. My fingers are crossed that I can build some sort of educational S.T.E.A.M. with it. If I can begin providing some valuable content, while making more connections, and having thoughtful conversations, with just a little bit of goofy fun, I’m sure things will be happily ever after. 

2010 Resolutions

The following are my New Years Resolutions for 2010:

• Read more. Turn off the computer at night and read a book or magazine before going to sleep.

• Write more. Update my blog on a more regular basis. Even if I have nothing to say and it's piss poorly written.

• See more live music. The second half of '09 I feel like I saw the most live music I've seen in the past decade. Continue that. Music is my church, and Lord knows I need to be saved.

• Cook. I wanna to say, "cook more," but the honest truth is that I don't cook at all, and I need to learn or at least try. I wanna spend time in the kitchen preparing my own meals with more veggies and less meat.

• Travel more. I wanna go camping in Yosemite, visit family in San Diego, and generally familiarize myself with the great state of California.

• Take more pictures. I work in a school with amazing, international students. Unfortunately they are only in the States for a limited time, and I want to do a better job documenting my time with them.

• Use social networks & media. As with the previously stated resolution, I've been building an unbelievable global network of friends for the past decade, and I want to do a better job maintaining those friendships and connections.

• Call my mom & both my grandmothers more often.

• Remain positive. No matter what, and don't let the bastards drag me down.

Please wish me luck in this year!

M

Mission Bar

Yelp

L

Local

http://www.sf-local.com/

K

Kate O'Briens

http://kateobriens.com/

J

Jade Bar

I

International Cocktail Lounge

Yelp Review: here

Dylan

Together Through Life:
Dylan as the best Texas bar band in the world weathering the oncoming apocalypse at the edge of the earth.

Check it out: Amazon

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

I heard Dylan on his radio show say this woman would blow my mind.






I do believe he was right.

H

Hi Dive

http://hidivesf.com/

G

Grand View Hyatt

Yelp Review

Bumped for Boston

So, I've been living out of a backpack for the past nine months and waiting for an opportunity to return to Boston and gather my personal belongings and get them to San Francisco.

Last weekend coming back from New Orleans, I voluntarily got bumped from my connecting flight in return for a free round trip ticket to anywhere in the continental US. Single.

While I waited languidly in LAX for six hours, I started calling around to friends. Turns out one good friend was planning on going to Boston the end of May for a Phish show at Fenway Park. Call it fate, but he had an extra ticket. Double off the Monster.

Talked to my boss; got the time off work. Contacted a couple friends in Beantown; got a place to stay and the green light to get my things out of storage. Triple down the line.

Booked my free flight. Grand-f*ckin-slam over Williamsburg into the Ted seat.

Sweet Caroline here I come.

So good! So good! So good!

French Quarter Festival / Stu's Wedding

Music from Big Pink

Like a phoenix rising from the pink styrofoam peanut shells & bubble wrap, my external hard-drive was resurrected.

Nearly nine months without, it's finally been reconnected. Hallelujah, I have access to all my music again!

Let the good times roll.

Easter

I won the egg hunt.

The Long Now

SALT: Seminars About Long Term Thinking

From the Long Now Blog:

Sustainable cities

Mayor Newsom began with how moved he was by hosting the UN’s World Environment Day in San Francisco in 2005. For that event, which was called “Green Cities - Plan for the Planet!”, he invited 120 mayors from around the world. Days of intense discussion led to the publication of 21 policy principles for building permanently sustainable cities, in the areas of energy, waste, design, nature, transportation, health, and water. Cities, Newsom said, consume 75% of natural resources and are responsible for 75% of pollution.

He became determined to help make San Francisco the Greenest city in the world.

That can be accomplished only with a plethora of highly specific programs. The city’s renewable energy portfolio, for example, includes highly demanding Green building standards (LEED); conversion to biodiesel and the recycling of “fats, oils, and grease;” generous rebates for solar; and plans for collecting energy from tidal-flow turbines below the Golden Gate and wave generators off of Ocean Beach.

He wants San Francisco to be the world leader in electric vehicles, starting with plug-in hybrids and moving to fully electric. They have half the moving parts of gas vehicles and much higher efficiency. The batteries can charge in off-peak hours, and gas stations can convert to “switch stations,” where you simply swap in charged batteries in less time than it takes to fill up with gas. The way cellphone time is sold in minutes, vehicle charging can be sold in miles.

He would like to see parking meters used for charging, and San Francisco is developing congestion-price parking meters that cost more during peak congestion hours, and that sense and can broadcast when they’re empty.

To encourage urban density, which is inherently Green, the city is building more highrises, and California’s coming high-speed rail system will leave from the heart of downtown.

Newsom noted with glee that there is now intense competition between cities to out-Green each other. Portland, San Francisco, Manhattan, Amsterdam, Vancouver, Singapore and countless others vie in the quest for Green bragging rights. They borrow ideas and deploy comparative shame: “How can sunless Berlin have more solar power than any American city?”

–Stewart Brand

F

Fireside Bar

Too tired to think

Debbie Gibson neon fire

North Carolina

E

83 Proof

April Fool

D

District

Delicious brussels sprouts

Muddled was the theme this day

Hesitant return

Yelp Review:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/district-san-francisco