CREATESouth fun

Had a great time at CREATESouth today. There were some excellent keynote talks given by Tiffany Trent on creativity and writing, and Tee Morris on the “social” in social media.

The keynotes were followed by a delicious BBQ lunch prepared by Andre Pope

Following lunch were the breakout sessions, organised into 4 different tracks: Community, Writing, Media and Art. I started off with the Writing track and Marsha Guerard’s talk on editing, which I quite enjoyed.

Then popped over to the Community track to catch Chuck‘s talk about organizing groups using Meetup.com and Jared‘s meme talk.

Caught part of Kreg Steppe’s presentation on digital photography where he talked about what’s ok and not ok to photograph, and Creative Commons licensing. A very informative session. Wish I had made it in earlier to catch the first part of his talk.

The final session of the day was the discussion panel in the Community track about geographic communities. There was a pretty good discussion about how the media was starting to use Twitter and some of the benefits and challenges in getting meetups going so that people participating in social media can get together and meet in person.

Community track discussion panel

Overall I had a great time at CREATESouth, meeting and putting faces/voices to more people, and came back a little more refreshed and energized than when I went.

The rest of my CREATESouth photos can be found in my photo gallery and on Picasaweb.

Acoustic treat

A mostly free evening finally coincided with an installment of the Palmetto Acoustic Series at Muddy Waters Coffee Bar so I headed out there and met up with Ian, Kathy and Heidi for what turned out to be an evening full of some very good folksy music. I think I enjoyed the performance by the Barnard Sisters most. They had a fun folksy style that just makes you want to smile. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Hopefully I’ll have more free evenings that coincide with future installments of the series.

Big Screen, Big Trek

I’m going to be at the Terrace Theater‘s new Hippodrome (the former Charleston IMAX theater) on May 7 for the new Star Trek movie.

Starts at 7PM. See you there.

Penguins at the Aquarium

One of the perks of being a volunteer at the Aquarium is getting the inside scoop on new exhibits and animals. Needless to say, I thought it was pretty exciting news when I heard a few months ago that the Aquarium was going to be getting a penguin exhibit.
Now that Penguin Planet is officially open, I figure it’s safe for me to show off some of the pictures I’ve been taking over the past couple of months.
Here’s the penguin enclosure just after it was delivered to the Aquarium. The old touch tank on the first floor was removed to make room for the Penguin Planet exhibit.
Penguin enclosure just after delivery
A couple of weeks later, the enclosure moved into its final resting spot and the exhibit space was getting framed out.
Penguin Planet exhibit being framed out
Here’s the exhibit space all framed out. Life support systems for the enclosure have been installed and the enclosure filled with water. No leaks!
Penguin Planet exhibit framed out and filled with water
The walls have been put up and covered and waiting for the final touches on the exhibit. Penguins have moved in and are getting used to their new space (you can see them hanging out in the top left of the enclosure.
Penguin Planet exhibit
The completed exhibit.
Penguin Planet exhibit
Here are three of the four penguins. None of them have names, but they each have wing bands with different colours so staff can tell them apart.
3 of the 4 penguins
These particular penguins (Magellanic penguins) are pretty buoyant and don’t dive very deep
Penguins swimming