JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

the shadow of a jellyfish

Wednesday afternoon the girls and I were able to stop by Puppets on Parade. (POP) What fun!

Come one, come all to make puppets big and small. Puppets on Parade is a free community art project for people of all ages. Over the course of two weeks, we will create a cast of characters on the theme: “Awesome Aquatics.” The puppets will be made out of paper mache and simple materials, and there are jobs for people of every skill level

My two younger daughters constructed jellyfish and snails from paper plates, inspired by the examples hanging around us, while we watched others at work, finishing their creatures for our island’s Fourth of July celebration. A group of girls ripped fabric and added tentacles to the family of larger jellyfish on the lawn. At a table two dads talked, one telling the other how the story of how he and his family recently moved to the island. Paint, glue and cooperation flowed. In the afternoon sunshine, projects dried and sparkled. It was exciting to see how materials including old umbrellas, backpacks and piping had been transformed into aquatic puppets! Art and physics are involved, as the community members determine the structural needs of their inventions and play within the limitations of the materials and time.

Check out the Puppets on Parade blog and stop by if you can today or tomorrow from 1 to 5 for the last days. POP symbolizes for me what community means. We come together as individuals with dreams and ideas, for creativity and community. It’s a blast! POP is at the art store on Madison Avenue. A path from the bike rack behind City Hall leads up Madison to the Puppets workshop. Thanks to Kathe Fraga and Wendy Jackson Hall for heading up this great community event! I can’t wait to see Monday’s parade!

half a fish

eyeballs in the grass

through the tentacles

This weekend at Gnomedex I officially met the talented Steve Garfield. He described to me how his mom, Thoroughly Modern Millie, one of the Internet’s oldest bloggers, had given a presentation on the power of blogging and sharing stories in her life. It sounded similiar to my talk but coming from the opposite spectrum of life and a different angle. Go see it!

Through DadTalk, I’ve started reading Families & Technology: This is a blog where we talk about technology and its effects on families, individuals and our society. We explore where it’s helpful and when it’s harmful.

Kathe Fraga pointed my attention to Puppets on Parade, documenting our community’s creation of large paper mache aquatic figures for our upcoming parade and celebration on July 4th. The girls and I are hoping to stop by sometime this week and see for ourselves this fabulous fun.

Looking at Beth Freeman’s blog and her Bainbridge blogroll, I discovered islander Victor Cosby’s dreaming of electric sheep.

Soaking Rhet [found again via Technorati “Bainbridge island” feed] is a new anonymous blog. written by Bainbridge of My Existence describing our community through the eyes of someone who recently moved here from California. I find this perspective accurate, funny and refreshing. From Post 3 on the ferry: I ride the ferry twice a day and after just three weeks, I have picked up on a definite culture. Depending on where you sit on the boat, there are ways you do things.



Local and nationally-recognized poet Kelli Russell Agodon linked to physician and poet Peter Pereira . I noticed his poetry when it appeared in the Seattle Times in 2003 and I look forward to reading his blog. Already I like Let’s Try It On the Dog.

Read the blog for One: the Campaign to Make Poverty History to keep up with Live8 news.

My friend Katherine posted that her mother, also a friend of mine, has started Listening Heart at Home: Life unfolding, working, learning, playing, as I discover who I am today. I’ll be listening to the Listening Heart!

Thanks to Techpodcasts.com for posting the mp3 from my talk on Saturday at Gnomedex 5.0 titled The Masks We Make: Blogging As Social Tool.

Click here to listen!

I am hoping that the video will be posted also, since my talk is dependent on visuals. Some sentences lose significance without the slide to see.

But I hope that the mp3 will help satisfy requests for transcripts and audio. It will give a taste of my talk. 🙂

Again, thanks to Techpodcasts.com especially Todd Cochrane, and Chris and Ponzi for the recording!

Thanks to Chris too for this fun family photo from my session at the conference…

Being a speaker and being a mom (with my kids present) at a conference makes it a different experience. I missed parts of some sessions and wish I had been better able to give my full attention to some speakers. However, I was able to catch a few quotes and highlights, which I’ll post here, as my impressions of Gnomedex.

Chris Pirillo’s Gnomenclature which opened the conference is not to be missed! Chris and Ponzi were sweet and energetic to everyone. By the way, their conversation on how they met and fell in love is fun listening!

Dave Winer: Hating my blog is fine as long as you keep coming back and reading it.

At the end of Dave’s keynote session, we all sang Yellow Submarine, which was appropriate to me because all I knew about the next-door Edgewater hotel when I was growing up in Seattle was that the Beatles had gone fishing out the window there. The hotel even planned a whole year of events commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the Fab Four’s visit. From Gnomedex there are some interesting photos on flickr tagged with edgewater.

It was fun to see Dave again, and great to see Dave and Adam Curry getting along again.

Much has been said about Microsoft announcement, the keystone session following Dave’s. The company is “betting big on RSS” in Longhorn. “We want RSS everywhere, ” said speaker Dean Hachamovitch. For more details see Ted’s post and Robert Scoble has a number of posts with links. For the session, it was a standing room only crowd, with a photographer from AP at one point leaning over our shoulders to take a picture, and many press reports published afterwards.

Speaking of getting along though, what disturbed me the most about the Microsoft session was the obvious tension and lack of trust in the room. Here’s another quote I caught from Dean in response to a question: You’re assuming Microsoft has a heart.

By the time he said that quip (in jest), if I remember correctly, a few tense exchanges had already happened. I’ve heard from Ted here and there of the conflicts with the company, but I had never experienced so clearly the distrust between the two sides. It was thick in the room, and concerned me. I hope that this relationship between Microsoft and the open source community especially improves.

Like Ted, I enjoyed Hobie Swan’s MindManager session. While I was working on my talk, I had cut out pieces of index card and moved them around the dining room table, in hopes of organizing my thoughts – lacking a better way to represent my ideas. I’m glad to hear MindJet is working on a Mac version. I also wish I had gotten a copy of his book that Evelyn Rodriguez quoted. Most of all, I wish I had had a chance to say hi to Hobie.

During the Tomorrow’s Media panel. J.D. Lasica played a powerful video that reminded me of my own story about my brother I shared in my talk. I was glad to meet J.D. and fellow panelist Terry Heaton after my talk.

Philip Torrone of Make magazine, pt, has an excellent demo style, using an overhead projector. I could watch him for hours and I hope to see more of his presentations. Even the kids were curious what he was doing with all those iPods. Thanks pt!

I missed some of Denise Howell’s session but I got to hang out with her and her young son for a while Saturday afternoon in the kid’s room…formerly known as the press room. It was fun to have the company of her company. Chris and Ponzi were very accommodating to our kids!

There was talk of Blogher at Gnomedex. I met Evelyn and Denise who will also be at the upcoming conference. Blogher came up in other conversations too. After enjoying this exciting time at Gnomedex and meeting a few others who will be there, I’m looking forward to being in Santa Clara on July 30th! [note: registration is only open for 26 more days!]

Speaking of connections, Gnomedex was the first time I met three bloggers from Bainbridge Island: Kevin O’Keefe, Eric Freeman and Beth Freeman. We’ll have to try to get together on this side of the Sound sometime!

During Adam’s keynote, it was noted that Robert got up and got everyone dancing. Ted and I were in the press room hearing the mashup and wondering why everyone was still in their seats. Congrats to Robert for getting the party started and breaking through the geek resistance. 🙂

Adam Curry: We’re taking back our media… to the hearts and the minds of the people.

It was clear Adam had done his homework, weaving together themes from across the conference. Friday night I reluctantly stayed home from the Seattle Library party, knowing that I needed to spend time preparing and sleeping in order to do a good job on Saturday.Sitting at my desk, I listened to Adam’s short DSC from Friday night and it sounded like he too was staying in and working. Although I wished his keynote had lasted longer, what he did was great.

Lots of swag including a new jacket. I went to get one for Ted but it didn’t fit him so I ended up keeping it. It’s polyester but fits nice. It’s the kind of coat I can take places with the kids and enjoy it but not worry what happens to it. I also got a pair of new grocery sacks for my collection. I’d say I was the only one on the island with these items, but I know I’m not!

Plenty of food as well, all you can eat. In fact, last night the girls mentioned they wished Gnomedex was still going so they could keep eating the snacks!

Thanks again to Chris and Ponzi and everyone who made the conference great!