Verde Smoke

I'm just recovering from April 2007, which will forever be known in my mind as "the month of excessive conferences." It started with WAM!, then NTEN in DC.

I just finished my first MassIMPACT Spreading the Stories three and 1/2 day digital storytelling train-the-trainer workshop, hosted graciously by Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (IBA) and the El Batey Technology Center of the Villa Victoria housing development in the South End of

When people ask me (as they inevitably do when they find out I’m a full time volunteer) why I do VISTA, I often cite the ways it connects me to groups and people that I could have never imagined I could meet doing a regular job.

When I start trying to define “multimedia,” I hope to veer away from simply saying “communicating in lots of ways at the same time.” But the medium itself is often framed not by what it is trying to say, but how it is being said. We as a technologically obsessed society often are distracted by the ways the bells and whistles ring rather than their melody.

“It was twilight. It was dark. It was basically night. Any your father was wearing his sunglasses…”

My mother pauses for effect, head poised on hand. My father continues to spice his food with salt and pepper, giving no clue as to if he has actually heard or cares what she said. I guffaw, as I often do, and wish that my brother was here - the fourth seat at the round dinner table conspiciously empty, save for a pile of my father’s clothes and papers. Once the laugh subsides, my mother continues.

Holidays with my mom’s side of the family have changed a bit over the years. When I was a kid, I have vivid memories of wearing uncomfortable dresses, then changing into regular clothes after a few short minutes. The whole generation of cousins, ranging ten years, would run around the house and yard or eat up the appetizers in seconds, in comfortable in the companionship even though we only saw each other a few times a year.

How about the tale of the trip back from my cousin’s wedding? I must preface this with the fact that this wedding was in the middle of the days when my grandmother died last year, but the semi-dysfunctional side of our family decided to still have the funeral two days after the wedding 6 hours away in Maine.

I’m a bit in shock myself, but yes, I’m starting my own blog. The main reason is to create a home to start documenting ALL my pursuits, not just my CTC VISTA work. In the process of finding just the right samples for the Portfolio section, I stumbled across a video Colin Rhinesmith posted on ACMEBoston.org.