Category Archives: Events

Machu Picchu and an Artist

by

0

I heard a really cool story from my mom and dad the other night. We were going through some old correspondence from around 1970. In the pile was a card from an artist called David Silverberg.

I asked who he was and how they came to run into an artist at Machu Picchu. Mom told me that once, long ago, while they were living in Lima, she, my grandma, and my oldest sister, Johanna, went to Machu Picchu for a sightseeing trip.

They ran into a friendly fellow tourist, who happened to be an artist from Canada. He was in Peru for a showing at a gallery. They exchanged addresses, he invited them to his showing in Lima, and later he sent them a really nice note about how it was great to meet them.

Here’s my mom and my sister, perched on the mountain:

I told my mom that next time she is on a mountaintop with a famous artist she should have someone take a picture of her *with* him :)

A Hackathon with Local Social Impact

by

0

WPABQ Hackthon

In early February, the Albuquerque WordPress Meetup group (WPABQ) organized a hackathon at a local coworking space called TechLove to create some websites for local non-profits. In the past, WPABQ hackathons have included Sky Garden (now Flow), Fairfield Farms, Cathryn McGill (performing artist). This time WPABQ worked with ABQ Zine Fest, Nano Network of New Mexico, and Querencia Green.

Team Querencia
ABQ Zine Fest materials
WordPress!

Recap

Typically our groups work on self-hosted sites, but, Querencia Green, had an existing WordPress.com site, so we challenged the team to use WordPress.com instead of exporting to self-hosted. The Querencia team members took the challenge as you can see on their site. Even though I love all the projects, I admit I have a special affinity for Querencia since they are on WordPress.com.

ABQ Zine Fest, another fantastic participant, had used Blogger for some time, and the team brought everything over to a self-hosted WordPress site on GoDaddy. She was a bit nervous about coming over to WordPress, but we told her it’s what the cool kids are using :)

Nano Network of New Mexico had a really large project scope, but the selection team really liked the idea behind the project. The team brought their project into scope for the time we had available and gave them a great site. As of this writing this site isn’t live yet since it has to go through an approval process with the NNNM board.

Team Querencia
Team Querencia
Brooks
Team Querencia hand made logo art

Definition

Hackathons can look different depending on the scene and the group making it happen so I will take a moment before I get too far ahead of myself to explain what a Hackathon means in this context.

A gathering of talented designers, developers, content writers, marketers to create a website in a very short period for a pre-selected organization. The organizations selected depend on specific criteria pre-determined by the hackathon organizers.

The Goal

Mostly the goal is to have fun and to create something nice. Specifically, the goal is to pool local design, developer, publisher/content writer resources and work as a team to make a live website; a functioning, appealing, usable website for pre-selected local groups.

The Purpose

The way I see it, there are two main purposes behind the WPABQ meetup hackathons.

1. Teamwork: Many web professionals work from home and rarely work in a team environment to produce websites. A hackathon gives us the opportunity to experience the sort of teamwork that is part of a web project. It forces us (in a good way) to come out of our comfort zones to brainstorm, plan, prepare, and complete a project with other people we are not accustomed to working with.

2. Outreach: Since community is the main focus of this meetup group, it is natural for us to periodically give back to the community. We are always giving to each other, learning, helping and at a hackathon we give back to organizations that are not connected with the WordPress community. The best way we can give back is to use our talents to create a WordPress website.

It may seem that this second reason is really the first, but it’s not. Since this is a community, the focus is on the community effort that is necessary to produce the work for the projects we select. For anyone wondering how we organize our hackathons here are some basics. Feel free to reach out to me if you have questions.

Click on page 2 for the specifics on schedule, process, and lessons learned.

Pages: 1 2

Christmas Musings in September

by

2

Halloween decorations have been in the store for a month or so at least, so I can think about Christmas, right?

I’ve been thinking about Christmas trees. Even though we were really into Christmas when I was growing up, we didn’t always have a Christmas tree. We always had something that represented the tree, it just wasn’t always what you’d expect to see at Christmas time in someone’s a living room.

One year, my Dad brought in a branch from a coconut tree. My sister, Nicky, braided the fronds so that the branch made the shape of a canoe, or a vertical eye. We unpacked our decorations and hung them on the tree just like we would have hung them on a normal evergreen.

One night, we were jarred from a deep slumber by a loud noise in the living room. The thing had fallen off the wall where my dad fastened it.

Another year, my brother came from San Jose, Costa Rica to visit us for Christmas. I think he heard about the palm branch tree and so if it was the last thing he did, he was going to get us a tree. So he and I walked to the grocery store Christmas tree stand, a night or two before Christmas. We scoured the lot for the least pathetic of the trees left over at that late stage. He shouldered it and we hiked a mile and a half back home. I loved that tree. It sort of was reminiscent of the tree in the Peanuts Christmas movie, but I just loved it.

My parents decided one year we would use our massive ficus tree for Christmas. I am pretty sure I complained. But, use it we did. It wasn’t so bad, at least it wasn’t flat and hanging on the wall. I was a teenager at the time and I was so embarrassed, I didn’t want my friends to see it. Looking back, it was pretty cool and inventive.

On it went over the years. When I got married, I was adamant, I was going to have a big beautiful fluffy tree with lots of shimmery things on it. We went out and got this humungous fake tree (it really looked real, I loved it). What I had not counted on was our cats. We spent hours decorating that tree. and then the cats attacked the bottom few feet of it and ruined the whole effect.

One year the cats knocked the tree over. And just as the cats were getting used to the tree, we had kids. For years, no decorations on the bottom few feet of tree. Sigh.

When I thought the kids were old enough to “mind” I decorated the tree just how I wanted it. The kids rearranged it all every.single.day.

Then they started making ornaments from construction paper. Big.massive.splashes of color. And you know what? I loved it. The tree looked like a tree in a house of children and it was awesome.

Now? I don’t even bother. I open up the Christmas decorations, the kids throw them all over the tree in a big flurry of Christmas color, even some construction paper decorations get saved from year to year. And it’s all good. I can’t wait for Christmas.

Coop Tour Wrap-up

by

1

Today we participated in another successful coop tour. We think we had about 60 people stop by, pretty good for our neck of the woods. It’s funny, we recognize people from year to year, it’s like the social event of the year for urban chicken owners.

The lemonade salesman

Rick sold lemonade all by himself.

Hot chickens

The chickens laid no eggs, we think they don’t enjoy being on display.

4H

We helped the 4H people get the word out about their poultry sale.

If you are interested in getting on the tour next year check out the coop tour website.

2012 Albuquerque Coop Tour

by

0

If you are in Albuquerque you absolutely must head out on Saturday and Sunday, June 9th and 10th from 10-2 to see the fabulous backyard chickens this city has to showcase.

We are, of course, proud members of the tour and our kids will be selling lemonade. In fact, if you want a chicken or two, we are selling two of ours.

Download the Coop Tour Poster PDF

Solar Eclipse in New Mexico

by

1

Tonight we went on a solar eclipse viewing journey around Albuquerque. It was a bit unplanned, but we were unsure of the best spot to view the eclipse. We started at a friend’s house to check out their telescope/cardboard box/construction paper contraption for viewing the eclipse. Then, we drove to Jazzercise del Sol to take a view through some fancy solar eclipse viewing glasses. Finally, we ended up at our favorite airport viewing area.

Our normally deserted viewing area was packed with people, but we managed to find a parking spot next to a lovely couple that let us take a peek at the eclipse through their dark glasses. We wanted to be away from the crush of people, so we chose a viewing spot a bit past the crowds, but  close to a group of photographers.

We set up our very fancy pin hole and hole punch eclipse viewing mechanism just in time to see the full eclipse.

A super nice photographer came over to us and gave us his solar glasses. The kids were thrilled.

The adults were pretty excited too.

We’re not sure what this guy was doing, but he was wearing a white gown with a black face mask and now and then would twirl around and around making his gown flow out.

This is the best part of the viewing area :)

The best part of the eclipse was the end, since the sun set while the moon was still eclipsing the sun, we could see the crescent shape peeking over the horizon as the sun set. Frank remarked that it looked just like a shark fin. Then, as it went lower, the fin moved along the horizon a bit, just like a shark swimming through the water. My iPhone takes a mean picture, but not that good :) So we’ll just have to keep it in our memory. At least we got a picture of the pretty sunset.

I am a Trekkie…

by

1

star trek klingon trekkie

Image via Wikipedia

…but I don’t dress up and go to conventions like this dude =>

Nuff said.

I haven’t watched Star Trek in years, ever since Star Trek Next Generation went off re-runs on and Star Trek Voyager ended. I didn’t even go the latest movie. I have 4 kids, what can I say? Trips to the movie theater don’t happen all that often.

So why was I so excited to see Brent Spiner at Comic Con? I wasn’t quite sure at first, I was never really all that excited by Data. I was more excited by Wesley. Hey, gimme a break, I was 13 when the show aired and he was a cutie back then.

Standing in front of Spiner’s autograph table and looking over the pictures of various NG scenes a flood of memories washed over me. I realized then that my fascination is not with the actors, but with what they and the shows meant to me over the years.

I don’t know how my Star Trek fixation started, but I watched the first episode of Next Generation at my Grandma’s in Madison, Wisconsin while my parents were on furlough from missionary work in Panama. I fell in love, watched every episode I possibly could, got totally mad when Wesley went away to “school”, and thought Pickard was soooo handsome.

I used to rush home from school just in time to watch 2 back to back episodes of Star Trek that aired on the only English station we had in Panama. I’d grab something delicious to eat, hunker down in front of the tv, and soak in some Spock. Who can resist a tall dark handsome fellow with pointy ears? I would cross my fingers that my parents wouldn’t get home before the show was over as I’d get a talking to about 1. not changing out of my school uniform, 2. eating on their bed (the TV was in their room) and 3. watching TV instead of doing something useful, like folding laundry or doing my homework. I told this story to my parents and they think I’m making that part up :)

When I lived in Minneapolis for college, Next Generation was on TV every night, two back to back glorious hours of Star Trek. Even when Al and I were first dating I made him sit with me and watch it, what a guy!

Through the years, Al and I watched Next Generation, Voyager (I cried when it ended), and any movie that came out, sometimes multiple times. I think those aired every night, again, what a guy. So you see, Data is more than just some famous (ish) dude. It was exciting to see a bit of my fascination, up close, and in person. Maybe next time Comic con comes to town I should score a Starfleet uniform and dress up like Dr. Crusher, Counselor Troy, Captain Janeway, Lieutenant Uhura, or some babe that hangs on Captain Kirk.

Or this :)

False Profits

Image via Wikipedia

At Comicon

by

0

We’re at Comicon today.

Having a blast, checking out the costumes. I’m just people watching and handing out info about the ABQ Tech Community. We brought the two older kiddos, they’re having fun just watching the crowds and reading their free comic they got in their goodie bag.

Our booth is across from the tattoo people. Ouch. Active tatooing.

Albuquerque WordCamp 2011

by

0

WordCamp Albuquerque 2011The first ever WordCamp in the Land of Enchantment!  We are so excited to announce that WordCamp is coming to ABQ.  This area is a fabulous place to hold a WordCamp, there are so many WordPress users, designers, developers here and we are coming together to have a fabulous WordPress time.

The first WordPress MeetUp took place last Thursday.  Take a minute and sign up to attend the next one.