November, comin' right up!

 Time's a'flyin'. As I always say, "Time is money and money is time and we ain't got all day."

One of my many bosses at Williams Island Club in North Miami Beach, Florida used to proclaim while stomping his diminutive frame through the about-to-open restaurant, straightening place settings, "It's only a job of work. Get it done!" I was the Club Manager and it never sounded as good in my nondescript Nashville accent as it did in his high-pitched South African one. 

So, I say to me own self this chilly October's end Friday morning, "Get it done."

I performed a proof-of-concept camping road-trip back starting Oct. 17, driving to Montgomery, Texas, that little lake town with its twin city of Conroe, to visit my dear older brother. On the way I stopped outside of Charlotte, TN to have a brief visit with childhood friend John Depriest, after fortuitiously passing his remote house and turning around at the first opportunity to do so. After driving halfway through Arkansas, I camped at Iron Mountain Campground at DeGray Lake, arriving there after 7 hours driving, around dusk, setting up my Oasis tent, sleeping in Casper, my new Kia Soul, on an air mattress in the back, awakening cold and on a deflated air mattress around midnight, blowing it up with the electric pump and pulling it into the tent, turning on a borrowed (thank you, Rocky!) ceramic heater, and awakening snug and warm in my sleeping bag to 36 degree pre-dawn. I broke camp in the dark and headed out to the nearby interstate Cracker Barrel for a big breakfast, only to discover it closed due to an overnight power outage. Around Texarkana, TX the interstate route became obsolete and I hit 300 or so miles of state highways, enjoying the fall colors and everything else about the drive. 

You can thumb through my pics at https://photos.app.goo.gl/E8B3LFXNQWtxJmFeA . It was a good trip in a number of ways, not the least of which was the chance to be with my brother, the other last man standing from our nuclear family, and visiting with old friends along the way. I really enjoyed the drive down to Texas City with Ed and our unproductive but relaxing fishing at "the longest fishing pier in the world," the Texas City Dike.

Fishing at the Texas City Dike

On the way back,  I stopped and had dinner and a spare bed at the home of childhood friend Ross Bandy and his lovely wife Donna. They are retiring together in 2023 and I was able to pass on now-expert advice about this new leg of life, for what it is worth. It's all about scheduliberation, you know. 
Now that I'm back home, I attended my painting class with Master Charles Brindley yesterday and did some more work on my current acrylics project, working from stills from friend Brian Siskind's award winning film, "On the Inside." Here's the film, and you can read more about it at tnstateprisonfilm.com. Thanks to Brian for his permission to screen-grab and paint. 

And here are some snaps of my first OTI painting in progress, on reclaimed 2x12 lumber:

At the very end of class, Charles gave me suggestions for how to approach the bars and I'll be spending the day today on bars, as opposed to in bars, or behind bars, to create the bases for varying washes that will retain the depth of the darkness within the cells and still convey the abandonment of the structure. This'll be fun.

More bars

More bars. I thought about taping for clean lines but the process for building up the negative spaces and tidying up their relationships with the bars is intriguingly meditative. There is much more to do before completion, including fixing that bottom left shadow of open door and thinking about whether the texture for the central open door is what I want.

scottmerrickdotnet drone adventures

Hey, all,

I recently came into possession of a Parrot Bebop 2 FPV drone and I'm beginning to use it for, well, FUN. I'll post more little videos here and on their own  YouTube Channel Playlist  as I collect images from on high with this tasty little tech tool!

I have been collecting filets in my freezer from fishing expeditions this summer, in order to have enough to feed us and friends at an end of the summer fish fry at Chez Merrique (our lovely little home in The Nations Nashville), and yesterday I had a good morning, bringing home 3 catfish and a good sized Redear, also known as a Shell Cracker. But before I ventured out onto my favorite little fishing lake I pulled out my new drone to get some video with the lake manager, Stevie: The swirling, rising mists on the lake were breathtaking on this cool summer morning.

I need to match up some music for this li'l ditty, and will, but for now, imagine some restful morning guitar and mandolin whilst you enjoy:

Early June Ramblings

A lot o' things. A lot o' things going on.

Hi, all, I just finished posting at my Falcons Tech blog and since I'm in the groove I wanted to update here. It'll likely be a bit of a chaotic post, since my life is sort of there at the moment.

Mostly, having put the school year behind me, I'm looking ahead to 2018-19 as we move into a portable during construction and then into a brand new computer lab. I'm working on ways to fund new equipment in the new lab. Stay tuned on that...

Looking immediately ahead, I'm knee-deep in the planning for ISTE2018 in Chicago. I'll be flying up the 22nd to get the lay of the land and attend pre-conference activities, particularly Hack Education 2018 on Saturday, an "unconference" that is always a deep learning dive.

On Monday morning, June 25, the Virtual Environments Network presents its 2018 Virtual Environments Playground. VEN was one of the first ever "Focus Groups" to present a day long, themed event, the "Second Life Lounge," in Atlanta at my first ISTE conference. Back then the conference was called NECC (the National Educator's Computing Conference), and that format morphed into the "Playground," as the "Second Life Playground," and then settled into the "Virtual Environments Playground" the third year of its existence. Learn about the beginnings of ISTE.

Anyway, that's my fun focus now. It's especially challenging as our focus at VEN has broadened to include, not just virtual worlds like Second Life and OpenSim, but all things virtual--mixed, augmented, and virtual realities. Along those lines we have some very special guests at the Playground this year. When schedules get finalized, which we anticipate being so on June 19, you'll be the first to know here.

I am also fishing every day I can this summer. I caught a nice catfish at Lake Marrowbone just Monday:

Finally (for now) I just had a birthday and my much-loved, loving wife bought me a new toy, the just-released Oculus Go. I'm very much enjoying noodling around in there and looking for educational potentials--my focus in all things new. Expect some blogging on that here. I am firing back up a dormant blog, "Nashville360VR" just for fun, so head on over there if you have some goggles, or even if you don't.

Over and out for today. #abetterbloggerinthesummer.

ISTE 2017--1

Typed in the wee hours of Sunday night, June 26th:
A great start to ISTE 2017.  Andy and I hit the road early after a very good hotel breakfast, he off to TeachMeet, an unconference-like all-morning and most-afternoon event which he raved about, and I plopped myself into a comfy chair in the PLN lounge after checking out our presentation spaces, which include Playground C in the Park View Lobby and room 301A nearby. The former will host the Virtual Environments and Games & Simulations Networks' amazing 2017 Playground and the latter is the location of Tuesday night's Edumachinema Festival. I zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Okay. I just wanted to share my z story. After Sunday, when we carried off a really excellent meet and greet at the ISTE PLN Networking Fair then caught a fantastic keynote by NPR's "Radiolab" series host Jad Abumrad, we hiked down to San Antonio's Yard House Yard Housefor dinner with Barbara, David, and Mary. Then after dinner I headed back to the hotel, and Andy walked to Pat O'Brian's to meet some of his NY friends and colleagues.

I was bushed so I sat up in the bed with my laptop in my lap to start this blog post. Andy got back into the room and quickly hit the sack in the next bed. After typing the "I" up above, I must have konked out. Andy said he awoke in the middle of the night and thought I was still awake, with my hand on the keyboard and the tv still on.

Here's the thing. When the alarm went off at 5:30 for us to get ambulatory and go down to work out in the hotel fitness room, I discovered my blog post and it was FILLED with z's. I kid you not, the tab bar on the side of the edit post was a tiny sliver. I had been typing z's all frickin' night long! I wonder how many I typed before blogger simply said "enough" and locked up the browser. It was an appropriate letter, though, don'tcha think?

I'm preparing to do some more reflection on ISTE17 soon, but I wanted to get this down! If you want a taste of the conference, check out the hour + Periscope of our Network's Playground on Tuesday.

For me, I'm fishing at my brother's lakehouse in Montgomery, Texas for a few days before heading back home. I was up this morning and out on his boat dock and I've already clocked 4 catfish, one big enough to put on a stringer to be joined by his pals later in the day and filleted and fried later in the week.

I'll be doing my post-ISTE17 reflections here during the stiflingly hot hours of the mid-days coming up. For now...

Exhibit 1, the first fish this mornin':

And the early morning pano: