Holidays: My Mom came to visit

Just wanted to share this image of my Mom. Taken on the Coastal Trail at 8 a.m. Dec. 27, out walking the dog Clare. My Mom is 86, lives in San Diego. We walked every day out on that trail, sometimes for two hours at a time, watching dawn arrive on the way home. And it was c-o-l-d the whole time she was here. She's great.

Making my dog stay up too late

It's 3:27 a.m. on my last day of holiday vacation. Come Monday morning, I'll be out at the bus stop at 7:12 a.m. in temps predicted to be minus 2. I've got a good coat, good boots, an iPhone, a newspaper, the New Yorker to read on the bus. But it will be daunting. So...I think I am staying up late and deliciously anticipating sleeping in on Sunday. Last chance. And my good dog stays up too....as best she can. This isn't the first time I've caught her napping, either.

Job changes for me

It's in the minuses up here -- really cold and for days on end. Here's a shot out of my bedroom window to the birch tree in my front yard. The snow on top of the branches makes me think of reverse shadows.

On Oct. 17, I ended a 26-year career at the Anchorage Daily News. But I haven't given up on journalism. I just felt like I wasn't making a significant contribution at a time when the newspaper could ill afford anything short of miraculous. So I side-stepped to a job over at the University of Alaska, Anchorage adding video and audio podcasts for their web site. And so I am back in the business of learning more new technology and practicing it. I work with great people, and the university offers a lot of cool benefits. I miss a newsroom, but one must do what one must do.

So far, I've edited a pretty short video of the chancellor addressing a committee, and an audio podcast of an economist discussing Alaska's status with respect to the crash in the US. I am also writing a story for a magazine about 6 students who are the first in their families to go to college. I'm loving the interviews and the people behind this story.

I'll be back with more thoughts on adding (trying to add) Twitter and Facebook to my life. I find I start them, but don't sustain them. I'm so slow at this, I get frustrated. Tomorrow I am gonna practice doing an audio slideshow with my dog and my voice....I have to start somewhere.

Speaking of starting, I'd like to start a master's studying business models for newspapers. OK, news organizations. We've got to find a way to finance high-quality local journalism. I hardly feel like the genius who'll figure this out, but at least I'd like to go out trying. It seems daunting. But, the only place to start is at the beginning. Here's a photo of a lump of clay I keep on my desk for the times (many) when I feel overwhelmed about where to start.

Doggie tug-of-war in the backyward

Clare (black dog) and her good buddy Rudy (white dog) having a doggie battle in the backyard. Clare doesn't usually win anymore. On walks, she starts a tug-of-war, but when she can't win, she feigns disinterest. Here, she wins. She is 9 and Rudy is about 3, and he outweighs her by far. They stay over at each others' houses when their humans travel. We take Rudy for lots of dog walks in Kincaid Park. Clare is bossy, and Rudy is totally cool about it all.

Test with Flip cam

Here's a video shot at Kincaid Park walking my dog Clare and our friend's dog, Rudy. Peter is in the shot. This is a test post.

Can't resist

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Twitter tips

Just caught this on the Spokesman-Review editor's blog.

In the SR newsroom, we MUST understand and then embrace the notion that print is no longer our primary focus. As advanced as we are in the digital delivery of news (and this conference confirms for me that we are ahead of the industry curve, as innovative and progressive as any newsroom ), we are still too print focused.

We need to devote FEWER resources to print. Our editors need to spend far less time worrying about print. And all of us need to be focusing on how to improve and expand the scope and quality of our digital news and information (and that includes radio).

This is a huge cultural leap. The push back will be extreme. Work schedules will have to change. Skills will have to be refined or re-taught or learned for the first time. Many of us will have to fundamentally question what we do, why we do it and how it must be done differently.

The editors who push this cultural change forward will not earn many friends in the newsroom. I think that understanding has been sobering for all of us.

This feels like familiar territory. Our audience has discovered reader-submitted galleries and those are hot. We have a hot politics blog. Everything else is percolating at a much lower energy level. We just had layoffs and I think there's a hangover from that.

I am new to twitter and generally find good referals there to things I would find valuable to read. This SR pointer came from twitter, Jay Rosen specifically, as did, I think, these interviews with Beat Bloggers on Mevio.