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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

NPR Story: Backyard Art Thrives in Michigan

July 30, 2008 · From anywhere in Michigan, you're only a day trip away from a Styrofoam, 13-foot scale model of Stonehenge. There's also a menagerie of farm and circus animals constructed from car parts. We visit some of these artists and innovators.

To listen to this NPR story, click here: Backyard Art

For more on backyard art and other Michigan unique expressions of creativity, read Weird Michigan by Linda S. Godfrey.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

Pausch was many things, he built bridges between the sciences and the arts, confronted walls that he or others put in front of him, had the unrelenting curiousity of a child and insisted on having fun through it all.

He reached star status when his “Last Lecture” at Carnegie Mellon became a YouTube sensation.

The lecture was followed by a book of the same name, written with Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow, who worked on the book from his home in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

He passed away July 25th, 2008 at too early an age from pancreatic cancer.

One of his last projects was Alice, a free and innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience.

Become a kid again and try it out alone or with a young one you know:

http://www.alice.org/

And, take some time to listen to “The Last Lecture” on YouTube.

ABC is doing a 1-hour feature on his life, July 29th at 10 pm EST.

To all who confront walls, build bridges, and have
fun each step of the way!


Where are folks coming from?

Two resources related to understanding why we keep preaching to the choir and why our communities do not grow.

Check out:

- The Metropolitan Group on Building Will

- One on Ones

Followers