Write, Teach, Laugh

Category: Teach

Four Teachers

As I came of age in Baldwin Park, California, four teachers had an impact on me and my life. First, the lay of the land. When my parents chose Baldwin Park in 1957, it was still SoCal country. From the late 40s till the mid-50s it had been the home of the Country Barn Dance…

Bringing Ron Home

I got a surprise today. It was the last stop on a journey that began on March 18, 2016. I was at the SXSW film festival in Austin, Texas. Things were wrapping up and I was looking forward to spending a couple of days in Houston with my sister-in-law Mary and her kids. Then I got the message from home. My son Ron had fallen. He was vomiting blood. The doctors said he had a stroke.

E3: Games that Don’t Go Boom, but are Fun Anyway and Have Bacon

e3

E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, invaded the Los Angeles Convention Center from June 12-16, and left craziness and delight in its wake. I’ve never been a great fan of the shoot’em up games. Instead, I searched the humongous displays in the Los Angeles Convention Center for build’em ups. I found two: a relative newcomer, Farming Simulator, and the newest iteration of a classic, Sid Meier’s Civilization.

SXSW: Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Everywhere, in Everything, and Everyone has a Story

AR VR SXSW

The question that dominated many of the VR/AR seminars at SXSW was “How do you tell a story using this new technology?” “New” because the hardware has become affordable for consumers, and game engines used to create VR have become more powerful. The market is attracting a range of companies, from startups to ancient tech giants like IBM and Microsoft.

SXSW: Sucked Into the Story: Virtual Reality and News

VR News

Can news reporters use virtual reality? This is the question that participants at “Sucked Into the Story: Virtual Reality and News” tried to answer at SXSW. I had the feeling that somewhere around 1950, a similar group of people sat around discussing what the impact of “this television thing” would be on radio news. We may be at a similar juncture.

Interdrone: Drone Law – Intended and Unintended Circumstances

law

At Interdrone, the International Drone Conference in Las Vegas, Sep 9-11, John Abbey exposed the crazy quilt of laws that make progress with drone technology difficult, if not impossible. Abbey is nationally recognized as a leader in technology and practices for law enforcement. With over twenty years of experience, including time as a Chief of Police, he lead teams responsible for establishing the 911 number in California, bringing computers to police cars, creating field crime analysis, and digital mugshots.

SXSW V2V: How Neurobiology and Yoda Can Make You a Better Speaker

“On October 20, 2000, they pulled the plug,” explained motivational speaker John Bates. “We had lost $80 million and when you do that, they come in, usually with security guards, lock you out and you have nothing. I was so embarrassed, so crushed, I thought I was going to die,” he explained. But, Bates survived the bursting of the internet bubble and today, as founder/CEO of ExecutiveSpeakingSuccess.com, he teaches executives all over the world how to pitch to obtain funding and achieve other objectives. And, he’s good with a light saber.

NAB 2015: Blogger Melanie Nelson Gets Down to Self-Editing Basics

(Originally published on Blogcritics.org) At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show 2015, in the Las Vegas Convention Center, surrounded by every video camera made, virtual sets, lighting equipment, online streaming hardware and software platforms, they didn’t forget that it all begins with writing. In “Self-Editing Basics: The Tools You Need to Improve Your Writing,”…