The Door

I don't know why, but it is things like this that make me love the Internet. As many of you might know, John Calipari, the basketball couch at Memphis is considering a move to fill the coaching vacancy at Kentucky (one of the top jobs in college basketball). He has yet to announce a decision, so a Memphis TV station decided to put up a live web video stream of the door to the Memphis athletic department so people can watch for Calipari leaving with all his stuff. Another live web video stream is watching the gate in front of his house.

So, now naturally, the door is getting a lot of press and fans (it even has two Facebook groups devoted to it - 1, 2). Speculation is raging about the fate of the door. Plus, if you heart the Door, here is a t-shirt for you.

All this in less than 24 hours. Seriously, how great is the Internet?

Moustache-a-thon

I wanted to put in a plug for my friend Steve who is in a Moustache-a-thon to support the Capitol Letters writing center in DC.

You can donate money to Steve's campaign and watch his progress on the Moustache-a-thon blog. Last week the participants each got a straight-razor shave and each week they will track their progress and post pictures on the blog.

If you're in DC and want to attend one of the check-ins to lend your support, here are the details:
What: Moustache-a-thon Check-ins
Where: Asylum (2416 18th Street NW)
When: 7 p.m. every Tuesday in March
Who: You!

Much like 826 Valencia, where I have been volunteering some of my time, Capitol Letters is a literacy and writing center where students can get after-school tutoring and help with homework. They also have special workshops and opportunities for students to learn about writing and express their creativity in unique ways. It is a great program for a place like DC where the schools don't have the resources to provide these kind of programs. So, it is worthy of your support, especially if you live in the DC area (and I know many of you reading this blog do!)

The Crisis of Credit Visualized

Avid readers may remember this post where I showcased a very cool example of displaying complex information in a understandable way - a topic that I find fascinating. Today, a colleague forwarded the video below to me. It is another superb example of taking something that is very complex (the credit crisis) and using visual media to make it dynamic, interesting, and clear to anyone who might watch. It is particularly impressive that he was able to hold my attention for a full 11 minutes - which is a very long time given today's short attention spans. Rarely do I spend more than a few seconds on something like this. We have all become very good as scanning the internet and synthesizing information, so it is really cool when something is of a high enough quality that you want to watch it all the way through. And he used Adobe Flash, After Effects, and Illustrator to create this, so yeah Adobe!

Credit to Jonathan Jarvis, a student at the Art Center College of Design, for this excellent piece.


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.