Saturday, September 30, 2006

The rise of Fall

Gardners working on yard

Camera Phone Post: Fall is falling around here
The sun has not come out all day. It has been a sweater and sweatshirt day. I slept in as I have just gotten so tired from all the work I have been doing. The gardners came today and really did a great job on the yard. We are going to get more landscaping done and fix the yard up nice. This evening we are going to Tyler and Mary's house for a dinner party. That will be a lot of fun!

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Thursday, September 28, 2006

Blogger Meetup Today

What: The San Jose Weblogger September Meetup

When: Thursday, September 28 at 6:00PM
Where: Tony Soprano's Pizzeria
87 E. San Fernando Street Near SJSU Downtown
San Jose CA 95113
408-271-9707

Event Description:
This will be another meetup for The San Jose Weblogger Meetup Group! These meetups are a great opportunity for bloggers and podcasters from the community to meet university students, faculty and staff whom are also interested in Web 2.0 technologies. Lets use the time to get to know each other, talk about being bloggers and/or podcasters, and discuss our common interests. This is a blogger dinner / geek dinner. We may do a "pizzacast" podcast during or after the dinner if there is interest.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Multimedia message

Luci sent this relaxing photo from seattle.

Friday, September 22, 2006

Day in the life of the Help Desk

Fellow employee Jason Ferguson made this fun movie of where I work.

Letter from a friend (2)

Hello all,

So, here's what I've been up to this week. Rhythmball is the exercise/exercise equipment my family imports from Beijing. Imagine my surprise when it show up on Sunday night's premiere of "The Amazing Race"! I've been sharing this with total strangers all day long and wanted to share it with you, my nearest and dearest, as well. Hope September is treating you well. Team Johnson is doing as well as can be expected, considering we're living on the wrong coast. :)

Love,
Lynn (Benson Johnson)

Letter from a friend (1)

Stephanie Quilao is the fabulous blogger and speaker at our first class. She sent this exciting email to Cynthia McCune, our class and I:

I blew it on the Scoble date. I had it in my calendar wrong. I'm so sorry I missed it. It sounds like it went well. Hope the students realize just how lucky they were.

I'm like an excited student today who wants to go tell her teachers how she did good today. So, since you're my teachers too, I just wanted to let you know I wrote a post last night called "How to explain RSS the Oprah way" and Steve Rubel posted it on Micropersuasion today:  It's also been bookmarked on delicious 60 times, and been Digged 11 times. I've gotten almost 2,000 hits in a matter of a few hours. This is all new and big for me. I tipped Lifehacker.com, so we'll see if they think it's link worthy.

Exciting stuff. I have a day of being popular online ;-)

I'll see you guys at the MeetUp!

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Scoble speaks to our class

Podcast 1:35:57 duration, 87.85 MB MP3 - Posted Sep. 18, 2006
Scoble's Class Presentation, recorded September 12, 2006.

To listen to high quality audio, click here --> MP3 File Here
This presentation by Robert Scoble was recorded during the third meeting of our class, Journalism 163. This unedited presentation is targeted toward journalism and mass communications students. It is presented here just as it happened. Scoble talks about his days at SJSU, how he got into blogging, the impact of blogging and how the worlds of journalism, business and advertising have been changed by blogs. He gives a lot of advice to the students in the class and answers their questions. For an excellent analysis of this presentation please see this post by SJSU Professor Cynthia McCune.

Podcast Note: All opinions given, as always in our podcasts, are those of the speakers, not of SJSU or The School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

Monday, September 18, 2006

A post of mine was picked up

Skype Journal

One of my blog posts was picked up
Yesterday I made this post to my geek blog. Today I got a call from Skype Journal. They picked up my post and wanted to run it. So, I said yes. Just when you think nobody is listening. You find out, they are.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

I am 51

Susie and I with birthday cake

I guess I am 51
Yesterday was my birthday and I celebrated it with family. I was in Sacramento during the day for a union meeting. After I returned I came home to a family celebration. Jeff, Nicole, Madison, Sue's mom Frances and Kenneth were there and we had a nice birthday party. It was a lot of fun.

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Madison and Shadow

Madison and Shadow

Unrequited love
According to wikipedia, "Unrequited love is love that is not reciprocated, even though reciprocation is usually deeply desired." Granddaughter Madison loves the kitties. The cats are less than thrilled with her attention. Never the less, the humans were quite entertained.

More about Jeff, Nicole and Madison
To find out more about what is going on in their lives, here is middle son Jeff's new blog.

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Thursday, September 14, 2006

Multimedia message

Drilling at Clark Hall

Camera Phone Post:
Contractor work habits
threatening SJSU students, faculty and staff

A contractor is drilling into concrete while students walk into Clark Hall on September 14, 2006. The students are walking around ladders, around the contractor's workman, over power cords and through clouds of concrete dust.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Our class is in iTunes

JMC163 in iTunes

Our Podcast is in iTunes
The podcast of this class is now listed in Apple's iTunes. If you go to the Podcasts section and do a search on jmc163, you should be able to subscribe to the podcast fairly simply. I believe this is a first for Journalism and Mass Communications.

Burgers and Beer with Scoble

Edupodder Podcast 28: 42:51 duration, 39.22 MB MP3 - Posted Sep. 13, 2006
Candid conversation, recorded September 12, 2006.

To listen to high quality audio, click here --> MP3 File Here
This conversation with Robert Scoble was recorded before the third meeting of our class, Journalism 163. This unedited conversation happened before our class. Present in this podcast is Professor Lilly Buchwitz, Journalism Student Mark Powell, Professor Cynthia McCune and myself.

Multimedia message

Camera Phone Post: Todays Lesson Is Electricity
Electricians do electrical work right next to students studying.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Scoble comes to our class at SJSU

Robert Scoble at SJSU
Photo by Andrew Venegas

Scoble comes to JMC163
Former SJSU journalism student and tech expert Robert Scoble came back to SJSU to tell students in our Journalism 163 class about blogging, podcasting and other new technologies including Second Life. More information will be following including podcasts of this conversation and the one at dinner before his talk to our class. Student Andrew Venegas did this great post during the class.

I have known Robert for about 16 years. he is a long time friend and has been an inspiration since he satarted as a student in The School of Journalism and Mass Communications back in the day.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Remembering

Sue, Ken and I at the WTC

Just another panic Monday

Monday morning kernel panic
Fifth anniversary of 9/11, I forgot my work keys, my computer crashed...

Friday, September 08, 2006

Sue's views on Kihn concert

We saw a fantastic show last night downtown. The Greg Kihn band did the last free concert in the park show. They really rocked. Steve got there early so we were right up front. We're probably going to go deaf but who cares it was worth it. I was surprised at how great they were. He put on an outstanding show. We couldn't stop moving. His son plays lead guitar in his band know, he's awesome. The guy is 57 y.o., just had back surgery, and it didn't slow him down for a minute. Too much fun.

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Fun night at free concert

Susie and I at concert

Camera Phone Post: We had a blast last night!
Last night Susie and I went to the Music In The Park free concert in downtown San Jose. Featured performers were Greg Kihn and The Greg Kihn Band, his son Ryan Kihn and The Ryan Kihn Band and Last Band Standing winners, The Groove Kings. Despite his recent back surgery Greg put on a great show. It was a warm evening with a full moon and we had an absolute blast!

Stage at Music in the Park

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Thursday, September 07, 2006

Unsafe Mess Cleaned Up

Door made accessible

Later that same day
After I sent the previous photo (see below) to the human resources health and safety rep, Mark Loftus, and CSUEU union chief steward Dennis Fox, they sent John Skyberg, Associate Director of Facilities Managment, to check out the situation. I received this reply from Fox, "I talked to Mark and he says it has been cleaned up and that the dumpster will be moved."

Previously I had verbally complained to Loftus about blocked exits, but this is the most action and fastest action I have seen take place to fix a hazard in Clark.

I think camera phones are a great way for employees and students to document unsafe conditions and get them fixed.

Unsafe condition at SJSU?

Camera Phone Post: Trash in front of fire exit

SJSU Clark Hall fire exit. Despite the fact that student, faculty and staff use is ongoing in the former Clark Library, construction is still going on. There has been issues with the contractors blocking exits. In my opinion this is a potential fire hazard.

Monday, September 04, 2006

JMC163 Podcast: Class August 29, 2006

JMC 163 Fall 2006 Podcast 02, 01:07:31 duration, 61.82 MB MP3 - Posted Sep. 04, 2006
Session of Journalism 163 class, recorded August 29, 2006.

To listen to high quality audio, click here --> MP3 File Here
This is the first meeting of our class, Journalism 163. This recording is pretty much raw audio of most of the class and is posted here to enhance student's learning experiences. Special in this podcast, guest speaker Stephanie Quilao, who blogs at Back in Skinny Jeans, tells J163 students that the growth of blogs and other new media technologies makes this a good time to start a media career.