Inspiration and technique

I'm watching a lot of videos and want to learn how to do a better job creating them, beyond my rudimentary skills. Here's one I like. It's called 'William and the Windmill' and its from Toronto Star.

I can't make the embed work at the moment, so to see this 3-minute video, click the link below the picture. I like the content, and I like seeing how the videographers and storytellers used various techniques to keep the story visually interesting. I found a reference to it on an online journalism workshop from the Czech Republic, 2010 that multimedia journalist/guru Mindy McAdams participated in.

Click on this link to go to the video.

TGIF: Commonalities that bind

Long time no write. Hmmm.

Well, one thing that comes to mind is it's Friday, June 8, 2012. And for workers of the world, which is most of us (in one fashion or another), Friday's are a big day. I have Facebook'd that I love Friday. But I guess I'm not done with that sentiment. So, just to have more fun getting it out of my system, here's some visual expressions of this feeling. Click on the image and it will get bigger and more readable.

See how universal it is? Crosses species, crosses belief systems.

The nun got me because I spent 12 years in Catholic School, and those poor women must have had some way to help them cope. God provides.

For the record, I like to work and I like my jobs and projects. My TGIF-ity is based on having done it for more than 30 years. Wouldn't it be something if Fridays disappeared? If in the economic meltdown, the 7-day work week became the NORM?

God forbid. Every soul needs some space for his or her psychic cells to leaven and expand. Enjoy yours.

Video snippets from the Rage City Rollergirls

Rage City Rollergirls Slideshow, Oct 1. 2011 bout

Monarch butterflies, 2010 Ski for Women

In the dead of winter, so see such vibrant, BIG butterflies was an enornous treat. How did they do it?

Enjoying JAWS: Women & Journalism Symposium at Snowbird

I'm at 8,000 feet at Snowbird in Utah, attending the Journalism & Women Symposium

Up at 4, Pete taxied me to the airport at 5, and I was airborne by 6:30, doing homework at 35,000 feet.

This group is an impressive assemblage of long-serving strong women journalists. They are gathered to consider the future of the craft they devoted themselves to, and women's role in its future. Lots of young journalists got fellowships to come.

One of my favorite things today was listening to Becky Wade read Maya Angelou's appreciation for the Texas journalist Molly Ivins shortly after she died in 2007. Molly Ivins Shook the Walls with her Clarion Call appeared in the Washington Post on Feb. 2, 2007, just days after Ivins had passed. It's worth the click through to read. I can hear Angelou's strong voice as I read it.

Becky Wade, by the way, was one of the three women journalists who sued the New York Times in the 1970s over its treatment of women journalists. Pulitzer Prize winner Nan Robertson told the story in The Girls in the Balcony: Women, Men and the New York Times.

It was a long day of travel, more as the conference unfolds.

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.