So – the time had come for final projects and presentations in my New Media classes. And I have a whole new perspective on giving presentations…

For most of us – presenting in front of a crowd is like peeing with the door open. Some of us just can’t do it. Others of us can – somehow secure in the knowledge that the lack of privacy does not negate the requirement to do the deed!

But for some of us… for some of us – giving a presentation is like pooping with the door open. And  NO ONE can do that…

So – next term I have a video class. Finally got word on what type of equipment to buy for the class. The instructor recommends a Canon HV20 High-Definition MiniDV. It has such features as: “it’s stylish [thank gawd! 'cause I was worried about my image!] .. and gives you the ultimate in HD video and digital photo quality with advanced features for the knowledgeable and demanding videographer.”

Hmmm … as I am an amateur in the videographer industry — I am wondering why I would spend over $1,000 to learn something I might not continue doing…

My usual default kicks in – I ask my friend the producer. Conversation went something like this:

Me: “Hey – I need a firewire video camera next semester – do you have one I can borrow?”

Him: “Nope, but my friend John has a camera that I always borrow, so I don’t see it being a problem (unless John’s dance recital is that evening…)” [the dance recital comment is a joke, not a funny one, but a joke]

Me: “… hmmm … “

Him: “Otherwise, buy one from [SECRET STORE I INTEND TO USE!], use it, and return it within 15 days for a full refund, no questions asked. I’ve always done that kind of stuff (although now, Future Shop has banned me from returns).

A friend, who makes documentaries, was hired to make a show on the sinking of a retired aircraft carrier in the US. They had put special cameras in crash boxes all over the ship; flight deck (upper and lower), the bridge, the bow, you get the idea. The day before they were to set off the explosives and sink that bad boy, he went to [SECRET STORE], bought a DV camera, put it in a PVC tube with clear plastic ends (parts from Home Depot), flew down to where they were sinking the aircraft carrier, and gaffer taped this thing to the tallest mast. After all was said and done, submarine and divers went down, they retrieved all the cameras, including the one bought at [SECRET STORE]. He took the DV tape out, put the camera back in the box, and when he got back to Vancouver, got himself a full refund. Turned out to be the best shot of all the cameras from its viewpoint atop the radio mast.”

… I LIKE this plan! Makes me feel like a evil genious !!! Bwa-ha-ha !!!

Alright – so try this one to amuse your children while traveling this holiday season!

Ingredients:
Take your video iPod.
Get this great product called a ‘Tadpole“.
Add on some great videos and let your child amuse themselves!

Portable, rechargeable and easy to x-change the videos on — have some fun with it!

I made two “Kidcast’s” and posted them to YouTube. One is me reading a book. The other is a “visual” of music.

BOOK:
‘Baby Ant has Stinky Pants’
by Sigmund Brouwer, Created by Don Sullivan, Illustrated by Sharon Dahl

VISUAL MUSIC:
‘I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas’
by Gayla Peevey

So – whatcha think?

Alternative title: Time Management and the Working Parent

Time is such an elusive little critter… It stands still, speeds up and is the master of all. So when it comes to having a family and a job – how can you make time work for you?

Here are some things I have found that help out – any other suggestions?

1 – Be Santa.
Make a list, check it twice. Don’t worry so much about the “naughty and nice” part. But checking off an item is just so… accomplishment!

2 – Parse it out.
Get some help from your family. Dad and junior can clean just as good as mom can (although you might have to continually explain to your 3 year old that the swiffer is for floors, not beds or windows…).

3 – “No one has ever died from dust bunnies.”
Many years ago I read a book called “Twenty Minutes a Day to a Greener Planet” (I think – can’t find it any more…). In it the author clearly stated that no one has ever died from dust bunnies. She provided wisdom such as:
“Do you housework on a work day – it will take 20 minutes on a Thursday or 2 hours on a Saturday.”
“At a restaurant, dishes really do clean themselves!”

4 – Ever considered delivery?
Shopping for food is time consuming. There are all sorts of services that deliver right to your door! Currently I am trying out spud.ca (Small Potatoes Urban Delivery). They provide organic produce and deliver a box to your door. You can take “seasonal” selections or check specific items off.
Heck – they even offer free delivery on most orders!

5 – Shop before hand – online.
Target your shopping experience! Shop before hand, online. Get an idea of the items you want to try out/on. Then go to the store or get it delivered.

My two recent online purchases were:
Text books for school. Shopped chapters.ca (notice I stuck with a Canadian distributor – saves border hassle!). Free delivery for orders above a certain $. Ships in 24 hours. Received in 3 days.
Total time spent book shopping: 16.5 minutes.

I needed a winter jacket. Tried shopping online at several stores – some had truly horrible navigation and item information (note to merchants – online shopping also serves a time-management purpose but we still come to the store!). I ended up at mec.ca. Was fast and efficient (thanks largely to the great and specific descriptions of the items – even told me how long the jacket was!). Narrowed my choices to three coats. Checked the store inventory online – they were all in-stock. Went to the store 30 minutes before they closed. Went straight to my items of choice and tried all three on. Got the blue one.
Total time spent jacket shopping: 29 minutes.

I am still analyzing the financials figures on all this – but so far it looks like a benefit – both in time and money. And sanity – never discount sanity!
… like Mastercard says – extra time to build a great choo-choo track is simply priceless…

“You can’t turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again.”
Bonnie Prudden

I was listening to a news report on the radio the other day… got me to wondering…

The report questioned why child care is such a challenge. There is money to be made in it – so why isn’t there enough of it? Why aren’t entrepreneurs and big business in the business of child care? One person they interviewed suggested that government interference contributed to the crisis by inserting too much “red tape” in the child care business. The counter-argument was that the government should be responsible but “tries to do it on the cheap” and doesn’t invest enough resources in child care.

You decide:

Here in the mighty Oh Canada we, apparently, have a “dismal” child care strategy. Out of 14 countries ranked by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) we are last.

“Canada spends 0.25 per cent of its gross domestic product on early education child care, which means for children under age 6. Denmark tops the list, spending two per cent of its GDP on early education child care.”

In Quebec – child care is guaranteed and costs $7 a day (note: it is so used there is now loooong wait lists for the service) … Even if you have to pay for all thirty days of the month (which you don’t) it would cost you $210/month. In west coast terms – $7 is about two tall lattes a day…

So (I can hear you wondering – honest I can!) – how much does child care cost in British Columbia?
On average – birth to 3 years of age – $1,000/month
On average – 3 to 5 years of age – $675/month (although this can remain at $1,000/month depending on where your child is). MATH TIME: That means that, if you are paying for 30 days a month at $1,000 – your child care costs you $33.33 a day… In Quebec terms – in 6.3 days you have paid what they pay a month…

– See CBC for the full report.

I have reviewed a great deal of the discussions (including the figures) and come to this conclusion:

Child care is something you merely survive. It has been crappy for a very long time. You are stuck in the “child care survival strategy” mode for about 9 to 10 years. As it is so consuming, you start experience battle-fatigue and wander away to survive the best you can. When you finally break free – you never want to look at it again — so you don’t continue the fight for the next generation.

This will not change until “both parents work so they need child care” families form a significant part of the PTB system and can – and will – do something.

Alright – so this weeks writing assignment was “the FAQs”. And that got me to wondering… what is a “FAQ”?

The loverly Wikipedia (fountain of knowledge that it is!) offered this up:
“The FAQ is an Internet textual tradition originating from a combination of mailing list-laziness plus speculation and a separate technical and political need within NASA in the early 1980s. The first FAQ developed over several pre-Web years starting from 1982 when storage was expensive. On the SPACE mailing list, the presumption was that new users would ftp archived past messages. In practice, this never happened. Instead, the dynamic on mailing lists was for users to speculate rather than use very basic original sources … Repeating the “right” answers becomes tedious. … The acronym FAQ was developed in 1983 by Eugene Miya of NASA for the SPACE mailing list. The format was then picked up on other mailing lists. Posting frequency changed to monthly, and finally weekly and daily across a variety of mailing lists and newsgroups.

Usability experts Jakob Nielsen and Steve Krug (in Don’t Make Me Think) have mentioned …  that too often these FAQs are written from an internal vantage point in place of putting true thought into the user’s perspective and what information typical users may want and need.”

—–

Ah ha! I thought so! Anytime I have ever tried to use a “FAQ” it was always “gobble-de-gook”. Or a quick out for a really bad web site…

And has anyone else noticed that the acronym is the word? FAQs vs facts??

… OMG! …
What if Eugene is actually the inventor of “txt speak”??? The godfather of SMS?? Should we revere or loathe him?

4col this tng is evrywhr! I jst want to esc! Maybe it’s a gnr8n tng…
u cn ask “hru?” and say “gb”. U cn even lol !
wtf?? … i gtg … tlk-2-u-l8r

It’s true! You Tube is the source of goodness!

Enjoy!

Confession: it appears I am not a natural blogger…
Sure – it started out all fun and glory. But when it comes to staying on topic – alas I am adrift…
Follow along if you will.
First up – what’s with all the menu choices?

My Account – My Dashboard – New Post – Press This – Blog Info

I am pretty technically suave and intuitive. So it came as a mild surprise to realize I have  noooo clue about a very large number of ‘blog things’ available to me. And I am not exploring them…
Even with ‘Dashboard’ – there is much ‘otherness’ to discover! Yet I don’t… I remain on the outside of this blogging world.

“WHAT THE BLOG IS GOING ON?”

I decided I needed to research this a bit – went back to the definition of a blog.

Well – it all starts right there – it’s a noun AND a verb!!  ‘Blog’ is the website and the act of maintaining or adding content.
… so finding the definition didn’t really help me …
I found some online articles re: “Introduction to Blogging”.
I learned this:
- content is the reason for a blog
- content must be regularly updated (or no one will visit it)
- a blog consists of “posts” (or entries)
- it is “the way” to promote an interactive website
“Wouldn’t it be nice if the readers of a website could leave comments, tips or impressions about the site or a specific article? With blogs, they can! Posting comments is one of the most exciting features of blogs.”
          (*note: I had no idea that blogs were so damn altruistic!*)

There are even “Things Bloggers Need To Know” which include things like ‘blogroll’, ‘trackbacks’ and ‘pingbacks’, ‘Post Slugs’ and ‘Excerpt’.

Blogging Tips:
1 – Post regularly
2 – Stick to a few specific genres
3 – Don’t add ‘subscribe’ and ‘vote’ everywhere
4 – Use a clean and simple theme (if possible)
5 – Enjoy. Blog for fun and comment on other peoples’ blog.

** many thanks to Wikipedia and WordPress for being the top google choices on the topic of blogging! **

And the moral of this particular tale? Well – it ain’t no Aesop’s fable… Could be that this cold has really beat me down… Could be because midterms are here… Could be I lack the ‘explore the blog world’ genetic coding… But I think I might just be old…

At this precise moment in time – I just want to express blatant indifference and blog off…

O k a y …

So my blog a bit back – the one about copyright and all? Turns out the PTB (Powers That Be) obviously have REALLY good metadata searches! Who knew that my class project would attract mega-corporation attention! If feel so SPECIAL!

The video clip I made (an animated comment on childcare) fromthe movie “Ice Age II – The Meltdown” has been pulled and I got this notification from YouTube.

… I have been pulled from YouTube …

… oh the shame of it all …

YouTube | Broadcast Yourself:

Dear Member:
This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation claiming that this material is infringing:

Ice Age II – Kiddie camp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN40GaasLAU

Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to avoid future strikes against your account, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube’s copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide.

If you elect to send us a counter notice, please go to our Help Center to access the instructions.

Be aware that there may be adverse legal consequences in your country if you make a false or bad faith allegation of copyright infringement by using this process.Sincerely,
YouTube, Inc.

So – here’s the dilemma.

I am writing the blog in the context of childcare resources in Vancouver. So what do you do when your start point content changes?

The website that I started with kinda ended… Now, I’m no Woodward or Bernstein, but the has “shank-the-public” written all over it…
Come for a journey on this particular yellow brick road!

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE:
Oct 22, 2007 – 24 Hrs (Commuter magazine)

“Big-box child care for B.C.?”
“Controversial big-box child-care could be a reality in B.C. if an Australian company has its way.”

Child-care advocates are sounding the alarm since learning an investment firm called Adroit Investments LLC has contacted local child-care operators in a bid to buy them out.
The coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C. traced the company back to 123-Global and A.B.C. Learning Centres, a private Australian child-care corporation that’s gotten flak in several countries for monopolizing child-care and providing minimal services to cut costs. … (Rita) Chudnovsky says child-care operators began receiving takeover bids in mid-September, just before the provincial government announced it would begin to subsidize private child-care providers. ‘We have trouble believing this is a coincidence,” she said (Chudnovsky). (Rita Chudnovsky is the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C. spokesperson).”

According to the website I was working on (Westcoast Childcare Resource Centre)

“On March 16, 2007, Westcoast received notice that Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) was canceling our long-standing contract for provincial early childhood and child care support services.

The contract officially ended April 30, 2007. The end of this contract represented an $800,000 cut in funding. At the same time, the Westcoast contract for the Vancouver Child Care Resource and Referral program was also reduced by $450,000. This resulted in a total reduction of $1.35 million dollars. Obviously this significant funding loss has had a severe impact on services.”

… and this leaves my content where? In the realm of the fictional I do believe… Ah – but think of the creative potential when the laws of internet physics no longer apply!