Latest Video Cast!

This is my last youtube video… from Klamath Falls! I’ll be in South Korea on Sunday, but I’ll continue to post from there.

I feel like this video is a major improvement over the last three both in terms of video editing/production and hosting. There are still some things I do as a host that are not good (such as starting every segment with “ok, so…”), but those are things I plan to work on.

I decided to can the intro. I still want some sort of intro music and footage for my videos, but I want it to be good and not just some random clips of me driving around. Once I get a better video editor, I’ll probably be able to compile something I’m proud of.

Enjoy, and feel free to leave me a comment.

Trip to Crater Lake

This is the third video cast I’ve done.

I’m not a great host, but I’m pretty proud of the way I used music and ended the video. I think I’m decent at editing video, but I’m a horrible host.

Hindsight and Fortune Telling

Hello darkness, my old friend,
I’ve come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
‘neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of
A neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one deared
Disturb the sound of silence.

Fools said i,you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you.
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon God they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the signs said, the words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls.
And whisperd in the sounds of silence.

Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. It’s kind of hard to believe that I’ve just now sat down and listened to this song all the way through for the first time in my life.

Monthly update

So it’s been a while since I’ve updated this thing. My last update was on May 18th, which means I did not post once during the month of June. I know I’m bad at updating things, but going more than a month without blogging is a record for me.

So what has happened in the past month and a half? The short answer is: many different things.

The long answer is:

1. Graduation— For the first time in 17 years, I am not a student and will not be anytime in the forseeable future. I have plans for Grad school, but those are a long way off. For now, I want to establish mysef financially, as a professional and as a person.

2. Catching up with family— After being away from them for a couple of months, I am now fully caught up on the lives of my mother, father, brother and two sisters as well as some of my uncles, aunts and cousins. I chatted with my Dad’s brother last night and I’ll call his father today. In addition, my mother’s side of the family will be holding a family reunion, so I’ll know more about the Caves and the Moores by the end of this weekend.

3. Trying to find a job— Because I’m planning on teaching abroad after the summer, I’m looking for work in Klamath Falls to keep me busy and to save up some money. But I’m only looking for part time work. I want to have most of my time devoted to being with my family before I leave them for a year. So far, I haven’t had much luck, mostly because the local economy is hurting. But persistance is the key when looking for employment, and I know if I search hard enough, I’ll find something.

4. Preparing to leave for South Korea— I didn’t realize how much paperwork I had to do before I accepted a position until this summer. I need my university degree, my university transcrips and a criminal background check apostalized. In addition, I needed to apply for a passport (which will come in 4-6 weeks) and prepare for a trip to Seattle upon getting a position to be interviewed for an E-2 visa.

Paperwork aside, I’ve been spending my spare time learning elementry Korean. I’m pretty good at typing Hangul and I can say some pretty basic phrases, but that’s all I can do right now.

5. Reading— I’ve completed reading Naked Economics (an excellent book if you want an easy to understand crash course in economics) and am in the process of thumbing through Team of Rivals (a book that documents president Lincoln and his most prominent cabinent members). I plan to pick up Freakonomics from my local library and then delve into books about the Iraq war. The war is the conflict of our times, but I know shockingly little about the conflict.

6. Reconnecting with old friends— Some of my tennis buddies from Klamath are still here, and I’ve been having a blast playing with them. Some of my other friends have forced me to get involved with other projects, such as a street drumming performance that my cousin is composing and conducting. It’s good to catch up with these people and see where life has taken them. Time really does change people, and in many cases, it has changed them for the better.

7. Missing my college friends— There is a not-so-famous quote in Dune that says “Parting with friends is a sadness. A place is only a place.” How true that is. A tiny part of me misses Eugene, but an even larger part of me misses the people that made Eugene one of my favorite cities to live in. In Eugene, I forged three of the strongest friendships I’ve ever had in my life, but life has torn us apart and set us on our own paths. Inevitably, time will change us and therefore the dynamic that existed between us if we ever meet again, but our relationships with each other over the last couple of years (or at least mine with them) was unforgettable. We spent the majority of our Friday nights together, we traveled together and we created a nice little niche for ourselves.

In addition, I’m going to miss all my other friends and coworkers who helped shape and mold my college career. The last four years has provided me with a network of friends who are littered all across the world, so no matter where I go, I feel like I have a personal connection to me nearby.

“WTF? I can’t retweet that!”

Recently, via twitter, I discovered that our incoming University of Oregon president Richard Lariviere has set up a blog. Because our outgoing president hasn’t been the epitome of transparency, I think this is pretty exciting.

So I decided to retweet that to all my friends, just in case someone missed it. Here was the original message:

Incoming UO president Richard Lariviere’s got a blog — check out his latest dispatch: http://tinyurl.com/UOnewpre….

So I retweeted the message:

RT @UOregonNewsIncoming UO president Richard Lariviere’s got a blog: http://tinyurl.com/UOnewpre…

Copied and pasted exactly from the original tweet. I did forget to add a space between “UOregonNews” and “Incoming,” and I did delete the unnecessary “–check out his latest dispatch,”  but other than that I copied and pasted it directly from the original message.

There was only one difference: the link that they posted worked. The link that I copied and pasted didn’t.

For a tweeter such as UOregonNews, I think it’s important to make sure each tweet is retweetable and fully functional. But I’m pretty sure most tweeters, who would normally retweet things, would think it’s worth it to get the original URL from UOregonNews, go to a URL shortener (such as http://bit.ly), fix it and RT the whole thing.

So instead of adding a fancy custom TinyURL that is impossible to fit into a tweet, go with something short. For example, we know the tweet is coming from @UOregonNews, so is it necessary to add UOnewspress into a tinyurl?

Bottom line: Function over form.

How I almost won a MacBook air!

I created this presentation for my Advanced PR Writing class last year. I posted the slides on Slideshare so I could show my friends. Next thing I know, my slide show is featured on the front page and I’m in the running to win a free MacBook air. Turns out I didn’t win the competition, but I had a great time reading all the feedback that people left me.

The presentation was created for the International Student Association. I created it while being employed by them to do public relations work. Here’s the presentation:

My typeface

I have been working on designing a new typeface.

This is definitely not a finished product. I haven’t thought about kerning, x height or anything like that yet. But sketches like this will help me get an idea of what my typeface will look like. I’m doing all capital lettes now, and then I’ll move on to lower case letters.

I’ll post updates as I make progress.

NYT Image: Bad news for newspapers

My attention was drawn to a graphic published in the New York Times yesterday concerning the state of newspapers. Not only does it show a graphical representation of the declining circulation of newspapers, but the bottom also shows which newspaper companies are losing the most money in terms of advertising revenue (the Chicago Tribune company is really hurting). Check out Media Owners if you want to find out what companies own what newspapers.

The other thing that I saw was that the Tuscon-Citizen is probably going to close it’s doors on March 21st unless they can find a surprise buyer. It hasn’t been around as long as some other dailies that are threatened (like the San Fransisco Chronicle and the Seattle P.I.), but it’s still sad to see a news daily go under.

Again, the challenges newspapers face are getting money from readers who expect to get their news for free and the getting the same amount of money from advertisers for their online content as they do with print media.

20 Tips That Help Maintain Professionalism

My roomate Sho attended  a lecture the other day by Steven Asbury. Steven runs a design firm in Eugene, OR and specializes in print design, but also has valuable experience in maintaining professionalism in the office. Here are the 20 tips he shared with my roomate for remaining professional in the office (they’re aimed at designers, but anyone doing work in journalism can use these):

1. Drive can beat experience.
2. Smile – even when work/life sucks.
3. Be Switzerland (*1).
4. Double check everything.
5. Writers should get to know designers, and designers should get to know writers.
6. Pick your battles.
7. Designers and photographers… Read the stories before you begin.
8. Getting it right still beats getting it first.
9. Look beyond your own publication.
10. Keep a portfolio. Improve upon it constantly.
11. Never miss an opportunity to market yourself. Show your portfolio to anyone who will look.
12. Make contacts. Make contacts. Make contacts.
13. Be accountable for mistakes. Everyone makes them, and they’ll be forgotten much faster if you just admit that you screwed up and move on.
14. Don’t get caught in “the moat of suckiness (*2).”
15. Never bring dirty laundry to a job interview.
16. Know the industry. Read the blogs.
17. Keep track of job postings.
18. Be the answer person. Say “yes” a lot.
19. Solve any conflicts before you go home for the day.
20. Show enthusiasm at work by getting involved.

*1: Meaning: don’t take sides. If you take sides, it will later limit your work whether your side wins or loses.

*2: The moat of suckiness is where you and your fellows can freely enjoy criticizing other staff and the things you don’t like at the workplace. If you are stuck in there, you will be totally unproductive and losing lots of opportunities.

Why I’m following THEM

I know, I know. In an earlier post, I laid out exactly how picky I am when it comes to following different people, and now I’m following 2 people who followed me first. It seems hypocritical. What did they do to get me to follow them that was different than what everyone else does?

1. They are tweeting about something that interests me. Right now, I’m obsessed with the state of the Republican party. This is not because I’m necessarily a Republican (I do have some fiscal conservative leanings), but I’m interested in how one person is using his personality to become the face of the party. I’m also interested in the bailout plan (aren’t we all) and how that plan and the President’s budget is going to affect our economy. @jaredmck saw a tweet I made about the bailout and followed me. I checked out his tweets, and I found out he is pretty passionate about the bailout too. That simple commonality was enough for me to follow him.
2. They respond to my tweets and engage me. @jaredmck responded to one of my tweets after I started following him. @ashlandweb followed me first, then responded to a question I posted on twitter with an insightful answer. I didn’t think twice about following that person back.

Simply put, these two people were interesting to me and they both engaged me. So I’m following them… for now. When two tweeters follow each other, it’s has gotta be because benefits are mutual between the two tweeters. Otherwise, they’re just wasting time.