Dinner and a Show (and now it’s bedtime)

Groceries bought. Dinner cooked. Online Class attended.

Every Monday three friends and I get together for dinner and to watch a lecture from the “Introduction to The Old Testament” from Yale Open Courses. This week, we weren’t feeling too inspired with for dinner but we did have tater tots already, so we just got stuff for veggie burgers. This week we’re up to lecture 10, “Biblical Law: The Three Legal Corpora of JE (Exodus), P (Leviticus and Numbers) and D (Deuteronomy).” It’s a pretty fun activity. For us, it’s part Bible study, part class, and part social time. It’s the first online class I’ve ever done for my own personal benefit and it’s pretty fun

also here is a short video of me editing the note at the end of the previous blog post that I shot just for fun. It’s nothing special. It gave me the opportunity to use the quicktime screen capture ability for the first time. Maybe it’ll make you give you some thoughts about digital composing. My favorite part is at 3:11. It’s possible embedding is disabled, but here’s a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B2ix6Limo8

Almost afternoon (at 2 pm)

The morning has dragged on and on. I had to submit my recommendations for the English Department Digital Media Studies Undergraduate award — read some cool iBook projects and watched some movie projects. I went out to lunch with a colleague who needed a recharge and peptalk. Some other colleagues are hanging out here in the DMP space with flowers and champagne waiting for another colleague to surprise a just surprised the freshly defended Dr. Horrigan, who will be doing a post-doc at Indiana next year. IMAG0186

And now I’m switching to an errands afternoon, which means I’ll postpone any primary research for the day. On other days of the week (Tu/Wed/Th), I make my research/writing the primary objective and begin my day with it, but Mondays I generally work it in if I can. I have a class at 7pm (more on this later), so in the next five hours I need to:

  • pickup prescription
  • build a backyard compost bin
  • take out the trash
  • buy groceries
  • schedule gas meter reading
  • pay rent
  • run two miles
  • cook dinner

5:58 pm update edit: came back to use this post as a live todo list. I was prompted to draft this by someone else’s more work focused todo list earlier. I’m not going to get to that run, but that’s ok. I’m just about to leave out to knock out the rest of those things on the todo list.

IMAG0187This was what resulted from afternoon step-away-from-the-computer break. I used a battery powered circular saw and power drill. Those were my digital dangerous tools of the afternoon.

DMP duties

Ohio State’s Digital Media Project is about support, equipment, training, etc. But it’s also about community and networking. Students come in-and-out to check out equipment. GTAs hangout, prepping to teach, furiously editing dissertations, socializing. Later there will be the usual unplanned communal lunching.

The official duties lend themselves to multi-tasking; I have to be available when needed, so I can’t be too committed to what I’m working on.

In the past hour I have:

  • Charged batteries for five Nikon Coolpix 7100DMPnikons
  • Helped  a GTA figure out how to attach an LED light to the Nikon camera
  • Checked out Zoom Q3HDs & tripods to three students for class projects
  • Entered a reservation for the American Folklore Society Board Meeting to borrow a projector for a week of meetings
  • Went to a computer classroom to trouble shoot connectivity issues (unable to resolve, need to enter ticket up the chain of University tech-support bureaucracy), where I heard an in-progress introduction to wordpress that echoed the set up I did this morning for #DayofDH 

I also skimmed a blog by one of OSU’s MFA faculty on the MFA thesis defense, which a good number of my friends are doing this week. I came across it in my primary tweetdeck column. (I have a primary column and a half-dozen focused subject columns. It’s the only way I can productively manage the information wealth of twitter.) For me, one of the best benefits of the digital is serendipitous discovery. But of course, it’s important to balance that possibility with the ability for sustained focus. Hopefully the afternoon, when I’m away from the DMP, will allow some focus.

Two hours after alarm

I have an alarm clock next to my bed, but I use the alarm on my HTC one. I have alarm set for Mon/Fri, one for Tu/Wed/Th, and one for Sat/Sun. I usually leave the phone on the charger across the room, or sometimes in a different room, so I won’t accidentally turn it off without every fully waking up. I snoozed twice this morning, then ate breakfast, showered, and biked to campus.

Opened the Digital Media Project, unlocked classrooms, and checked e-mail/calendar for weekly reservations and workshops. The DMP is my appointment for another month or two (in the place of teaching).  We check out a range equipment to support English department classes. I’ve already tried to help one student who needed a dongle for a class presentation. We do not have the vga-adapter for the ipad retina, only the vga-adapter for the regular ipad. Is that right? Is the retina the newest ipad? or simple an alternate? Why does Apple insist on driving us crazy by constantly changing adapter?

After basic open duties, I flipped open my own macbook, opened up my chrome tweetdeck tab (1 of 4 all-the-time tabs), discovered #DayofDH, followed the rabbit hole. Now here I am.