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Really cool to see this news this evening that Obama claims the nomination:

My favorite line from Jeff Zeleny’s article:

“They are members of Mr. Obama’s team — a political start up — that is responsible for defeating one of the most tried and tested operations in Democratic politics.”

And, what’s also cool is that he’s in St. Paul, tonight to announce this.  Deuce Cities!

My sister and I had the great opportunity to spend the past week traveling throughout Guatemala.  We started the journey in Guatemala City, flew to the El Petén region to explore the Mayan ruins of Tikal, visited with friends starting a non-profit organization in Antigua, and relaxed on the scenic shores of Lago Atitlán.  We roasted marshmallows over flowing lava, swam in crystal clear lakes, ate fresh mangoes and fresh made corn tortillas, and, best of all, met some amazing people.

In the next few days, I’ll be posting a number of photos from the trip on my flickr page.  As most of our time was spent away from Internet cafes, I’ll recap some of the trip experiences and reflect on my perception of how Guatemalans seem to be addressing issues areas including the high cost of energy, education, health care, and communication technology. One week is certainly not enough time for me to provide any significant commentary on these issues, but I will say that the time spent talking to people and observing environments very well may be enough to ignite some interesting discussions.

So, it’s official. Pieter and I finally have an office space for the Open.Michigan OER initiative - a place where we can actually have our own desk space, our own phone lines, leave thoughts written out on the white boards, call meetings with the rest of the team, and even brew our own pot of coffee.

Here’s Piet and Tim chatting at Piet’s desk about our eduCommons set up - the virtual space where we’re currently placing course content for the OER initiative.

This evening, Tim and I rode up to the Digital Media Commons’ Video and Performance Studio to check out two events: Enjoy Your Flight and Note Works. Enjoy your flight was a bizarre recreation of an airport environment, replete with video surveillance equipment, TSA employees, gates and waiting areas, as well as various disgruntled passengers. While in the security line and sitting in the gate areas we were being watched and questioned by various characters, including TSA employees, a man asking us to sign a petition in favor of the Protect America act - another man freaking out about having to wait in line. One interesting component is that attendees were asked to participate in various ways. For example, Tim was handed an envelope with an ear piece in it; funny to see him wearing it. The interesting thing, though is that one couldn’t really tell who was or wasn’t part of the recreation. Aside from the personas people put on, the whole event seemed like a strange psychological experiment. Normal people began acting in strange ways, when I sat down I asked the woman next to me if the seat was taken, and then picked up a magazine on it - pretending to look through it. People started asking where others were going, small talk broke out - people really seemed to believe that they really might be going somewhere. After about 30 minutes, a terrorist did appear, running out of the waiting area with security in pursuit.

Note Works was a pretty rad installation where participants could interact with and arrange icons to play different musical sounds, set intervals, tones, etc. I’m not sure it was as intuitive as the creators may have hoped, but my 10 minutes or so at the controls led me to create an interesting composition on E, C, A, and B. I wonder if they recorded this too?

Both of these projects were a part of the GROCS initiative, a Digital Media Commons program that funds student research that uses digital media in collaborative learning. Check out the flickr stream for more visuals, including ones of Tim being searched by TSA employees - sort of.