Category Archives: DS106

Breaking out the camping gear for Camp Magic MacGuffin

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Dear Family: Well, blame it on ds106, but it’s about time I get my act in gear if I’m going to Camp MacGuffin this summer. Hey Bunk House #2: please save me a spot by the fire, my gear and my bones are on their way! So here is my camping gear I picked up back in 1990. Good quality materials and of course I take care of my stuff. It has served me well all over the world. And still shines on. My Lowe Specialist Cloudwalker II has carried many different objects all over North America, Europe, North Africa, South Pacific, the Caribbean, Central and South America… The Marmot sleeping bag has kept me cuddly snug and protected in the high backcountry of the Sierras, Rockies, Pyrenees, Alps, and still has decent loft on standby in my dry basement. I’m ready to go camping! Do not worry, dear family and friends, I’m in very good company at Camp Magic MacGuffin. I promise to keep in touch this summer. I’ll be creating and sharing art with you over the Internets!

Camp gear from 1990 still kicking

 

Left to my own devices

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I’ve owned several record players over the years. I remember thinking from way back that I should probably squirrel one away in storage just in case. I’m pretty sure the last player I owned was accidentally thrown away while I was living overseas in the 1990s. It was stored in my folks’ basement. I did manage to take my Yamaha amplifer and a 5 disc Sony CD player with me to France. And all my CDs! But I left the record player at home. Why would you take a record player to France in 1994 anyway? A few years ago, a family friend retired and downsized her house in the Bryn Mawr area outside Philadelphia. She kindly gave my parents a number of vintage LPs, some of which are now in my possession. I would love to listen to them but am now tasked with finding a record player. My friend Dr Garcia kindly recommended one. Here’s another: the Crosley CR40 Mini-Turntable from Sears. But I’m keeping my eye out at garage sales for a real bargain. In the 70s, we had one of those all-in-one humongous furniture type devices. I think it had a built-in radio. It looked very similar to this one for sale now on Craigslist. It was a great hand-me-down from someone! I wonder where it is now? Is it still spinning vinyl in somebody’s living room or perhaps it’s stored in a basement or storage locker? I’ve got some albums I’m eager to listen to and share with others. Here is a future ds106radio show in the works… Oh, be sure to hold onto a VCR. I’ve got two. In another post, I’ll share how a friend and I rigged up a transformer to convert the 220V to 110V so I could hear my tunes in France. This setup worked great for a few years until it failed one day and gave both devices too much juice. Its last song ended with a bang and a puff of smoke.

 

Sharing art every day on the DS106 Daily Creative

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In addition to the DS106 MOOC I’m taking as an open online student this semester, I am going to make a very concerted effort to contribute to its Daily Creative. I think it provides a great opportunity to be socially-engaged with like-minded colleagues all over who enjoy taking pictures, recording audio and video clips, and sharing/providing feedback on each other’s work. I have to say I’m delighted to have found the DS106 community. Or, perhaps it found me… on Twitter! So, I’m sharing an example of yesterday’s assignment as communicated to its followers on Twitter.

I took this image using my Droid 2 phone. Then, I uploaded it to my flickr account (http://flickr.com/photos/harwoobe) and tagged it with  #tdc02. 02 is the second assignment of the semester.

Mac and cheese on the lady plate

Here is a bit more information about how it works. From the Daily Creative website,

The Daily Creative is an exercise in the continual practice of spontaneous creativity through short exercises. Each “assignment” should take no more than 15-20 minutes. There are no registrations, no prizes, just a community of people producing art daily.

What a very cool way to build community on the Internets!  Here’s what Day 3 is shaping up to as of this evening.

If you’d like to join us, here’s how to get started:

  1. Follow @DS106TDC on Twitter. Each day at 10AM EST a new assignment will be posted. The assignments will vary in discipline with everything from photography and drawing to audio and video.
  2. Once you’ve completed your assignment, follow the directions on the homepage to upload it to the appropriate service and tag it correctly.
  3. That’s it! You may wish to tweet out a link to it to let your followers know what you’re up to but this is not a requirement of the site.