Journal

I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of weekend events and weekday goings on that I haven’t had a chance to mention them here. Life goes on but not without looking back a little…

The Good

Friday afternoon, we visited the Aldredge Gardens in Hoover and snapped a few photos. Daphne was asleep in the car and not in her usual “take my picture” kind of mood.

Saturday morning was spent hiking Ruffner Mountain with my good friend, Ed and his dog Riley. We went early enough were the only people we saw were headed up while we were coming down. Very brisk and relaxing.

Saturday night, Wonderwife and I hit the kitchen to make Mongolian beef on rice. Take THAT P.F. Chang’s!

WW also fired up her bread maker and we devoured warm, fresh rosemary bread.

On Sunday, we enjoyed a super simple recipe and oh so tasty one at that. Italian flank steak and mashed cannellini beans. Yummo!

DVD is learning how to walk. At almost 8 months old. Seriously. We are not prepared for baby-proofing the house. Yet.

http://videomojo.info/2008/04/19/baby-steps/

DVD is eating baby food a lot more but enjoys sharing it with us even more.

 

The Bad:

Of course there were downsides to the weekend: the dog refuses to alert us when she needs to go out and uses the foot of the stairs to the basement as her personal toilet. Bad dog!

The heating element in the dryer craps out.

The brakes in one of our cars needs replacing.

The front porch step has a huge crack in it and is separated from the porch.

Up Next:

This upcoming weekend is PACKED for me. News on that is forthcoming.

I’ve said it over & over again and it bears repeating that Jenny is simply amazing. I don’t tell her this enough nor express my appreciation very well. When she does something, she does it very well. The woman can cook, craft, raise a newborn and more. She has a brilliant mind, full of wit and common sense. Not only did she excel in college (4.0 every semester), she is very attractive.

Yes, folks, I got the ideal wife.

No, I am not in trouble and this post isn’t  “get out of jail free” card. This is just something I had to get out of my head.

We’re coming up on 17 years together and a 12 year marriage and it just keeps getting better.

I love you, WonderWife.

Another Barcamp has come and gone here in the Birmingham area and once again, we can claim a success. How do I know this? The presentations on cutting edge web development, online reputation, new media and breakout sessions on communications tools such as Twitter and more. New contacts were made and filed into virtual rolodexes, friendships renewed as well as a spirit of cooperation in seeing the tech industry thrive here.

There was discussion on the future of Barcamp here and even PhotoCamp 2.0. Someone even suggested hosting Wordcamp (for Wordpess enthusiasts). We’ll see how far the adrenaline from Barcamp takes us. In the meantime, thanks to our sponsors, Microsoft, Google. Thank you to our camp organizers and to everyone who participated.

See ya next time…

– Happy Camper

Thanks Molly!

http://bhamweekly.com/article.php?article_id=00745

I’ve redesigned my Tumblr blog into Combo Mojo, added my custom domain (as opposed to tumblr.mojodenbow.com. This website pulls feeds from all of the websites in Studio Mojo. Now you can enjoy all of these websites into one by going to http://combomojo.info

Want to grab the feed? Here it is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ComboMojo

BARCAMP?

So what is this “Barcamp” thing all about? Despite what the name implies, it is not a beer-guzzling excuse to go outdoors with over 100 people. Although the idea is tempting in itself…

What I am talking about is a fantastic opportunity to come participate in a conference that is unlike any conference you’ve ever attended, unless you were present for Barcamp 1.0. This is what we call an “unconference”, a format where the attendees are the presenters and the camper decide what topics/presenters they want to hear. No keynote speakers, just people in the know sharing what they know. Sound good so far? But wait, there is more.

PROPOSED TOPICS

You can expect a lot of various sessions at Barcamp. The first Camp we had here in Birmingham included AJAX, Ruby On Rails, Microformats, typography, web 2.0 and even juggling for geeks. This year, expect discussions on Twitter, social media tools, marketing, startups, design and more!

PRESENTERS

As promised, you, and other like-minded people that you want to meet.

NETWORKING

This is a bonus here at Barcamp and we encourage this every chance you have while attending. Some people come to look for better career opportunities. More than a few campers attend just to see old friends and make new ones. The discussions and networking opportunities are invaluable. This year my goal is to make at least 5 new friends and add no less than 10 new contacts. Are you one of them?

FREE, AS IN BEER

Yep, this unconference is free. How cool is that? It isn’t often that you get so much value for free.

MAC, LINUX, WINDOWS, WHO CARES?

We do not discriminate based on your computer’s platform here at Barcamp. There will be free wifi for each. The same goes for your cameras. Bring them both and share with the gang!

STILL READING?

Register yourself as a camper and/or presenter as well as more Barcamp details by going to our wiki site: http://barcampbirmingham.org/ The not-so-secret password is c4mp. See you there!

Photos courtesy of Dimitri, Glynnish & Photo Mojo with gratitude and no compensation whatsoever.

 

So I am heavily into this thing called micro-blogging, or lifestreaming and created a Tumblr account a long time ago. This site allows me to aggregate most of my Studio Mojo web feeds and combine them into automatic blog posting. I could post a blog article on there as well, but I already do that here.

If you want to see it all at once and on one website, check out Combo Mojo: http://mojodenbow.tumblr.com/

Daphne spends a day at the Birmingham Botanical gardens

DIY Photobooth goodness!

I was in downtown Birmingham looking for the Photowalk gang mojodenbow.info/2008/03/31/april-fools-magic-city-photo-w… and saw a huge plume of black smoke up in the mountains (10 miles away) I couldn’t see what was burning but it was big and so I set off to capture it. Upon arrival, the area was swarming with onlookers and emergency workers.

I rushed to the gate with cameras in tow and was stopped by the police, even with my media badge. Reason being it was private property and the apt manager (The Enclave at Mountain Brook apartments) was insisting no press because of the negative images it would portray (faulty safety guidelines)?

A police officer suggested I get creative if I wanted any photos. Th place inside the complex had hoards of kids running to/from the fire on the back side of the complex just to see what was going on and could care less about their safety.

What made this worthwhile was the fact I had beaten the mainstream media by 10 minutes.After getting my shots, they came running down the hill towards the blocked entrance where I stopped them and told them no luck and why.

Eat your heart out again, mainstream media!

**UPDATE**
I wonder how the hell the Birmingham News got these photos?? blog.al.com/spotnews/2008/04/large_fire_reported_at_apart…

Flickr: Discussing April Fools Magic City Photo Walk in Magic City

Yes, it is true, we ARE having another photowalk in the Birmingham area this Tuesday night. We’ll meet at 5:30PM in the Speakeasy downtown Birmingham. After a few drinks to um, enhance our shooting skills, we’ll hit the pavement and capture anything that strikes our fancy.

The Rules:
Who is invited: Anyone who wants to come.

Who is not invited: mean people.

Required equipment: a camera of any type.

Suggested equipment: tripod (for after it gets dark).

Required Photographic Skill Level: Any. The purpose of this event is to just have fun, meet some people, share tips and tricks, and just enjoy photography together.

So that’s it, come on and join us April 1st!

A few shots from the last photowalking event:

Tags: Photowalk, Flickr, Birmingham, Alabama, Magic City Flickr Group