Social Media And Art Presentation

These are links for a presentation Eric is giving about social media. Feel free to browse:

social media as a site and/or medium for project:

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

http://thegreenwashingblog.com/

http://www.myspace.com/top8gallerythree

http://collaborativesaints.pbworks.com/

http://mayaescobar.com/website/accionesplasticas.html#

http://blog.sfmoma.org/2009/02/11/mtaas-automatic-for-the-people/

http://www.kmikeym.com/

http://www.urbanhonking.com/powerseller/archives/2007/09/ac_dickson_sell.html


Social media used as distribution tool:

http://delicious.com/oharry

http://peoplesprojectsblog.blogspot.com/

http://www.publiccollectors.org/

http://www.christmastimeradiohour.blogspot.com/

http://beerandscifi.com/

What you are doing at noon on Friday , March 13th, 2009

Dear Friends: Happy Friday the 13th! As part of my residency, I'll be donning a hockey mask and jumping out at people from the western underbelly of the Hawthorne Bridge with a real machete in my actual hand! I'll have raw beef and peeled grapes on-hand to add to the effect and totally gross everybody out! Ketchup? Chocolate syrup filmed in black & white, then projected onto the walls and floor? I'll also be wearing a blood-stained flannel, and what parts of my bald head you'll be able to see will be covered in hideous, realistic scars! I think this is going to be a really strong community-building event, and I hope you all can make it! Also I hope that it's warm and sunny out and that a lot of kids will be playing in those cool fountains! Also I hope the police come to cheer me on with their winning grins and people skills!

Okay, but for reals...

I really will be doing another installment of my boring old residency where I give people stamped postcards, ask them to write to someone (some two?) and then let me interview them for a few minutes. (I would do the Jason thing, but I already have warrants out, and the last thing I need is more jail time, especially with finals week AND swimsuit season just around the proverbial corner.) 

Repost Galore: 

The place: the amphitheater staircase that leads down to the regular docking place of the Portland Spirit boat in the Willamette River. This is right by the fountain area where kids and grownup kids alike tend to play on warmer summer days when the air is just so. This is north of the Hawthorne Bridge on the west side of the river. Some call this place Tom McCall Waterfront Park. Others call it nothing at all. Others call it home. Some know this place so well they just call it Tom.

Noon-2pm Friday, March 13th, 2009

Postcards, pens, and stamps provided.

BYOBelievability

Love & Lemurians,

R o z z e l l

M e d i n a 

Attendance is mandatory, but in a good way.

TOTAL DISSENT 2- OREGON PAINTING SOCIETY FEBRUARY 25 2009

Structure Building on Newberry Hill

Total Dissent- Racial Identity Class. February 18th 2009

Hey Everybody. Sorry for missing some days. The growing season is starting up and i've been busy at home. Im posting to remind everyone that the Arts Gathering at my house is this Saturday 7pm AND to say that Tasha and I are conducting our "structure building" class on the same day at 2PM in the meadow behind my house. You are all invited to come participate and then stay for the Arts Gathering and then to sleepout in the structure we all build. Tasha and I will distributing invitations tomarrow in class (Wed.) with further details.... It would be great to see guys this weekend.

my adress is as follows: 14019 NW Newberry Road Portland, OR 97231

Social Explosion

Thursday was information rich to say the least. Public Social discussed the opportunity for change that's hidden within the meltdown of the economy. Some of us became part of a student group who manifest media to raise awareness of sustainability. We're essentially part of who decides how to spend some of the Miller grant. Then it was Soup and Comedy which was good fun. The TV was a bit intense for me, especially the Will Farrell movie. I wasn't closing my eyes to be anti social...it's just that the smash bang pop of that kind of media is easier for me to swallow if I just listen to it. Thanks for reminding me to not hold my breath ;-) Oh and the smiling bear sculpture- precious. That made me bust a gut.

Then Adam and I took off. He's going to South Africa soon for at least a few months, maybe to stay. He's going with an open mind and no concrete plans. I was really happy to deepen friendships within this social practice class and expand my web of community, but I wanted to spend some more one on one time with Adam before he leaves since I might not see him again. We went to Mt. Tabor and played push hands a bit and an astronomology class happened. I like teaching one on one cause then I can pay attention to one person and I feel the transmission of information is deeper and more meaningful than if I have to talk to a group where someone will inevitably be left out since I can't adapt my communication style to everyone.

So how does this relate to my residency? The Legba veve for the crows was something like a symbol to send a message to my deeper levels of consciousness where my real decisions are made. A gift to social creatures such as crows was all part of the symbolism. It seems to be working. I make different decisions and move more gracefully through the world when I'm not working against unconscious desires. Using symbols this way is sometimes called magick, but it's really just a way of programming yourself for greater effectiveness in the art of living. I think it's way better than just letting the TV tell me what to do.

Survival without so much industry and with less money to throw around means cooperating with people and sharing. It also means cooperating with the non human intelligences of this planet and treating them with respect so we can learn from them.
My residency is part of my overall dream of helping Portland to transform into a permaculture oasis, modeling good behavior for the rest of the country. The connections I've made this term are part of that process.

Water Feature Engineering Homework

Experience & Education

I found this interesting bit about experiential education here.

500 Word Summary of
Dewey’s “Experience & Education”

For John Dewey, education and democracy are intimately connected.

According to Dewey good education should have both a societal purpose and purpose for the individual student. For Dewey, the long-term matters, but so does the short-term quality of an educational experience. Educators are responsible, therefore, for providing students with experiences that are immediately valuable and which better enable the students to contribute to society.

Dewey polarizes two extremes in education -- traditional and progressive education.

The paradigm war still goes on -- on the one hand, relatively structured, disciplined, ordered, didactic tradition education vs. relatively unstructured, free, student-directed progressive education.

Dewey criticizes traditional education for lacking in holistic understanding of students and designing curricula overly focused on content rather than content and process which is judged by its contribution to the well-being of individuals and society.

On the other hand, progressive education, he argues, is too reactionary and takes a free approach without really knowing how or why freedom can be most useful in education. Freedom for the sake of freedom is a weak philosophy of education. Dewey argues that we must move beyond this paradigm war, and to do that we need a theory of experience.

Thus, Dewey argues that educators must first understand the nature of human experience.

Dewey's theory is that experience arises from the interaction of two principles -- continuity and interaction. Continuity is that each experience a person has will influence his/her future, for better or for worse. Interaction refers to the situational influence on one's experience. In other words, one's present experience is a function of the interaction between one's past experiences and the present situation. For example, my experience of a lesson, will depend on how the teacher arranges and facilitates the lesson, as well my past experience of similar lessons and teachers.

It is important to understand that, for Dewey, no experience has pre-ordained value. Thus, what may be a rewarding experience for one person, could be a detrimental experience for another.

The value of the experience is to be judged by the effect that experience has on the individual's present, their future, and the extent to which the individual is able to contribute to society.

Dewey says that once we have a theory of experience, then as educators can set about progressively organizing our subject matter in a way that it takes accounts of students' past experiences, and then provides them with experiences which will help to open up, rather than shut down, a person's access to future growth experiences, thereby expanding the person's likely contribution to society.

Dewey examines his theory of experience in light of practical educational problems, such as the debate between how much freedom vs. discipline to use. Dewey shows that his theory of experience (continuity and interaction) can be useful guides to help solving such issues.

Throughout, there is a strong emphasis on the subjective quality of a student's experience and the necessity for the teacher of understanding the students' past experiences in order to effectively design a sequence of liberating educational experiences to allow the person to fulfil their potential as a member of society.

Sorry Night 2 (Blue Night)

After the First night of Sorry action, Things got off to a bit of a slow start on Tuesday with several competitors not showing up. (below is the bracket from the night before)



The First match of the night pitted our very own Eric against the nights eventual bracket champion Kevin. Eric ended up losing the match, but quickly took over the position of official event photographer.(some of his pictures below)







The night sped along pretty quicly due to two competitors slotted for the 6:30 game not showing up, so the six competitors for the night played pretty quick games, and before you knew it we had made it to the finals.



The Finals once again were greatly entertaining with a crowd gathering after it went into the second game with the player who came out of the loosers bracket winning the first, and handing the player from the winners bracket his first defeat.(the winner from the night before watches the match intently below)



In the Second game the tables turned and Kevin (pictured on the left) who played Eric in the first round, took home top honors for the night!




stay tuned for info on wedneday nights action. The last night of the qualifying rounds happens tonight (Thursday-the red bracket) and the Saturday night will be the finals!

Soup & Comedy Redux

Soup & Comedy Redux
Thursday, February 26
8pm
Ally's Apartment
NBC's Must See TV
(details in email)

*this image was just on the first page of googling comedy. we don't plan on watching blades of glory, unless someone really really wants to make an argument otherwise. the image is pretty funny, though.

Homeless Class!

Sorry Tournament off and running (yellow night)

The first night of the Sorry Tournament ended last night with some serious action. All the preparations had been made.

The night got underway early with the first game starting at 5, and from there it was non-stop sorry action till a little after nine

The final match was between Brian and Pablo (pictured below Brian on the right Pablo on the left). Pablo hadn't lost a game all night, and it was going to take a miracle for Brian to win, since he had to win two games in a row to be crowned the nights champion( and to be able to move onto the final night) but in a nail-bighter of a game he did it! winning two games in a row and securing a spot in the championships on Saturday night



Round two starts in just a few hours!

Public Social University - February 26

PUBLIC SOCIAL UNIVERSITY PRESENTS:
Free Lecture Series Part 4
Public Social University is a forum for diverse workshops and discussions taught by the people and for the people. Workshops are always free. We currently meet in the central library on select afternoons. Public Social University was created by the members of the art and social practice undergraduate class at Portland State University. On February 26th, they will present a mini-lecture/presentation series to the public on the topics of: Destructo! A drawing game, an Italian crash course, a discussion on sublimating the economic recession, and screen-printing, taught by Lori Gilbert.

FREE
Date:Thursday, February 26th
Times: 3:00-6:00pm
Place: Central Library, in the US Bank Meeting room.

The Slipstream

Yeticave visit: I just let go of something I was really attached to for a few years. I guess I had to do it that way for various reasons. I used painting as a way of making a visual record of my process, a process I invoked on purpose in the 90's, the process of intentionally undoing myself so I could put myself back together in a more effective and harmonious arrangement. I never really wanted to be a painter, but I fooled myself into believing I did because I had to prove to myself that I didn't want to do it that way. Musician just happens in me, as naturally as breathing. I picked up painting trying to ape the act of other people. I'd really rather be an urban kung fu farmer, but I was still too addicted to the death culture myself to realize it back when I decided to feed and water a painter identity.

Well one of my voluntary siblings stopped by tonight. It was a Yeticave visit and not just an old friend hanging out cause I did things differently. When she arrived she told me where she'd just come from in a shamanic workshop and it sounded like she would be better served by letting her do some art, make a viscerally felt record of her process then and there rather than continue chatting. So I asked if she wanted to draw in my sketchbook while listening to Bardo. So now my sketchbook has a bit of someone else's art in it, but I used my music to tune it to me so my defenses wouldn't reject it.

After as we talked her penetrating vision told me about how my room is constructed and who I was when I made the stuff that's hanging on my walls. I suddenly grokked in fullness that I'm done with the painter. I still like drawing, but I prefer the scale of things I can fit in my backpack, I prefer dry media that don't require using water I'd rather drink or use to make coffee or water plants, etc. just to make pretty pictures or keep a record of my unravelling. The short of it is I found an enthusiastic home for some canvases one of which was still empty and one that has an empty white canvas circle inside an india ink background. I'm downsizing in my drawing mode, but she's moving into a space where she needs more space to move things around. She's also more of a visual person than me so she might take to the painter naturally like I didn't. I also gave her the easel I had been babysitting for her that her mom donated to me from her store of unused art supplies way back (2005ish) when I was deep in the throes of my undoing posing as a painter.

So here's the social art project we dreamed up together: I took a couple of paintings out from behind the pile of old work I have in the Art Mausoleum I made around the landing at the top of the stairs in the house where I live and I said yeah they're kind of pretty, but they really belong in a graveyard. Sometime before the Aries equinox (end of March) I want to leave them in one. Next full moon perhaps? Maybe I'll leave them around the statue of Harvey Scott that looms over the south end of Mt. Tabor, pointing toward downtown, leading the people of the death culture to continue our rape of the planet onward and westward, puffing his chest out and scowling. To me that statue is a kind of grave. Leaving the paintings that are pretty, but really part of my unravelling process and not something I want hanging on my walls around a big symbol of death seems like just the purge I need to go where I need to go and do what needs doing. I don't need all that dead weight anymore.

First Outdoor Class on Mt. Tabor

I guess it was the wind and cold. Oh well, Adam showed up so we practiced some push-hands and I did much better than usual against him because I practiced standing and establishing my root before he arrived.

Then as we walked down the mountain we talked about our permaculture ideas. Last night We went to a lecture at the Pacific Crest School just north of Burnside over by the Whole Foods at se 28th by an Austrian permaculture genius named Sepp Holzer. By working with nature rather than treating her as an enemy he's been able to grow fruit trees including citrus as part of a thriving and diverse oasis on the slopes of the Austrian Alps.

A couple of years ago Adam told me he wanted to be a kung fu farmer. At the time I thought- well that's cool for you, but how would I have time for my art? The more I learn about permaculture the more I want to be a kung fu farmer when I grow up.

With this kind of farming you don't have to work nearly as hard because you relate to nature as a partner rather than abusing her like a slave. Treat her kindly and she will reward you immensely. See, there's no need to water or weed or any of that because the diverse community of plants support each other. When you plant one thing over acres of land it takes all the same nutrients out of the soil as its neighbors. With a plant community like the 3 sisters known to the Native Americans of beans, corn and squash each plant trades nutrients with the others. Pests are controlled by the plant community's greater intelligence created by a diversity of organisms.

While I'm still in the idea stage of this process for the most part (I have a little pot of herbs I'm taking care of in my room and so far they have survived the winter) I'm on fire with inspiration to carry it to manifestation. A Dharma practitioner Adam met in a cafe asked him if he wanted to transform his lawn into a permaculture garden. We've talked about making it a business. I don't know how to pull it off yet, but I could see myself doing that sort of thing for my living and eventually run my own urban small permaculture farm right here in the city...and teach others how to do it themselves.

See, our present way of feeding ourselves is horribly wasteful. Global warming owes much to all the trucks that haul chemical fertilizers and feed for animals to farms and then they haul the harvest to packing plants and then more trucks haul it to the grocery store where people drive it home in their cars. If everyone in the city had at least a small herb garden we'd really be doing something to combat global warming. We'd also have much healthier food with more vitality and flavor than the half dead stuff we get trucked or shipped half way across the world to the grocery store. Evolve or die, human.

Grok this:

No Soup

Soup & Comedy Cancelled
Ally's sick. Sorry guys.
We'll try again next week.

What you are doing at noon on Friday February 20th, 2009

This Friday (February 20th, 2009) at noon, Camille and Rozzell will be combining their proverbial forces to bring the Portland area a magical interlude the likes of which it has either:

a) never seen before

b) been missing

c) been dreaming of for quite some time now, perhaps in the shower.

The place: the amphitheater staircase that leads down to the regular docking place of the Portland Spirit boat in the Willamette River. This is right by the fountain area where kids and grownup kids alike tend to play on warmer summer days when the air is just so. This is north of the Hawthorne Bridge on the west side of the river. Some call this place Tom McCall Waterfront Park. Others call it nothing at all. Others call it home. Some know this place so well they just call it Tom.

The thing: Camille is hosting another one of her fabulously magnanimous tea parties. Who knows what wonders await those who indulge in such delights? Rozzell is giving people stamped postcards that he made to be written upon then and there. Bring an address or two. Someone you miss? Someone to whom you owe an apology? Someone you have never ever met? Barack Obama? In exchange for the stamp and the postcard, you will allow Rozzell to interview you for a (maga)zine that he will soon be making.

Please come, dear friends. Tell your buddies. Tell strangers. Tell Oscar the Freaking Grouch!

Love & Learning,

R & C

Soup & Comedy

Soup & Comedy Night
Hosted by Ally & Crystal
This Thursday Night
8 pm
Ally's Apartment
(see detailed email for address)

The First Day of Sol in Pisces Visions

Clicky the linky to viddy me pics of skyscraper hopping. Enjoy.
See you on the mountain? Stars pretty.

astronomology mt tabor this saturday 7pm

Weather permitting I'm doing a cross between astrology and astronomy class on the top of Mt. Tabor this Saturday evening. Meet around 7pm at the tree with 4 trunks on the north end of the top of the mountain, opposite the creepy scowly dude in bronze who looms over the south end. If the sky is cloudy but not raining class will still happen, but then we can tell stories, do some Tai Ji, come up with something else. If the sky is clear the sparkly region around Orion will be overhead with bright Venus to the west.

Forwarded from Ana

Lets Get Connected

Hello all, I am going to try this again. The new date for the outing is Saturday February 21st at 1pm in Front of Free Geek. Hopefully it doesn't rain, but if it does, the outing will be canceled and I will reschedule again! Hopefully we can try out this photo class before the term is over.

Yeticave Visit Improv

This weekend I broke my usual habit of hiding in my cave and responded to a roomate's request for me to hang out with them and some visiting friends downstairs. They had some dub spinning on the turntables so I decided to come down and dance instead of just being irritated by the thumpy boom-boom up in my room where the only audible frequencies are nauseating bass. I danced for awhile and then went out to the front porch to cool off and view beautiful Luna rising in the east. A friendly black cat came to greet me and when I sat cross legged up on a big square part of the porch railing he jumped in my lap and let me pet him for awhile. Then a girl who was visiting came out and the cat fell asleep in my lap. We chatted for awhile and then she got a phone call and went into cell phone land which normally I would find irritating in the middle of a conversation. But then I noticed the cat blissfully ignoring everything and snoozing away. I decided to follow the cat's example and just looked at Luna, flinging some yucky Qi off my hands to the ground.

Later I went back inside and tried to dance some more, but I felt pretty ungrounded. I went upstairs to get my kung fu stick, a twisty willow staff that I've had since around 1994 that I've recently begun to use to strengthen and open my wrist joints. I danced to the dub for a good long while, letting the weight and wood of the stick to guide my motions and show me which way gravity goes, using it as resistance to work out tension in my hands and arms. I remembered the chillin' black cat in my lap and also my old training as an operator in esoteric rituals with Ordo Templi Orientis where I learned how to focus my mind to hold sacred space for a group.

It worked! The heart Qi in the room exploded and everyone thanked me for my dance. Then one of my 3 roomates called for a group hug and I found myself surrounded by about 10 people all hugging me and each other.

Then last night girl came back with a friend who she carried all the way from NE on her bike. I went downstairs to ask that they keep the thumpy speakers off for awhile cause I was working on remastering Bardo. She asked if she could come up and join me. I agreed. Later she brought up her other friend cause my roomates had become absorbed in their computers and he was all alone on the porch.

So I got to share Bardo with 2 relative strangers who tripped out on my art and music. They both loved the music. She kept asking, "is that you?" to which I replied, "yeah it's all me except a little bit of my mom and my niece at the beginning". It was a nice ego stroke to say the least, but most of all I'm glad my music is strong enough to speak for itself. It's something I've been cultivating for over 20 years. This album itself has been gestating since early '08. Since I play all the parts at separate times and construct it as I go I'm as surprised as anyone at the end result. I don't plan things when I compose. I play one part at a time as it comes to me so it's as if the music already exists on another level of reality and it uses me to construct itself.

Anyway, there you go. I've had a hard time all my life opening up to social experience which is a big part of why I chose to follow this class more than once. This weekend was a giant leap for me partly thanks to a little black cat on friday the 13th. Bad luck? Well just consider that the culture who decided that black cats and the number 13 were evil also thought that earth, women, dark skinned people and enjoying yourself were evil. Black cats and the number 13 are only made evil by fear which the little black cat helped to teach me how to transcend.

My # is 503 819 8485. If you'd like to hear Bardo in its native environment and/or see my artfully constructed living space give me a call and set up a time. If you bring a laptop or a portable hard drive that can communicate with my iMac I'll give you the remastered version of Bardo plus the PDF of the artwork. If you bring a CD I'll burn it for you, but I'd really prefer reusable media than the little plastic frisbees.

Water Feature

that ball weighs 2000 pounds!

Kindy V-Day, short and sweet!

The kindergarten Valentine's Day party was the envy of all who passed by the door. Much to the glee of the kindergartners, older kids frequently poked their heads in to glimpse and wish outloud that they too could partake of the three different kinds of cookies, capri punch pouches, and mail boxes overflowing with Valentines. (Everyone must bring one for everyone!) My favorite part of the day was when we first arrived at school; all the kids were instructed to go around each table and put a Valentine into each kid's mailbox. First everyone assembled their Tinkerbell, Power Ranger, Transformers, and Barbie Princesses Valentines they had laboriously scrawled their names upon the night before. Next was the dispersement. Some kids quickly accomplished this task, while others were like ping-pong balls, bouncing from table to table, chatting with other meanderers. Oh yes, spiderman, well what I have got here is spongebob. Some kids suffice to just stick a handful here and there, and call it good. Others merely wander until their plastic baggy is empty. I counted atleast three from my son in one little boy's haul. Through out the day we continue to discover Valentine stashes that have yet to be doled out, wondering why it hadn't dawned on the owners that while this delivery process occurred they were milling around with nothing. Then upon opening thier cards, although just beginning to learn to read, the sentiment is not lost in the phrase "You are the coolest, Valentine." Or, "Have no fear, Batman is here, Valentine." One little girl went over to another and said how thoughtful her Valentine had been and they hugged. We also were all given Valentine friendship books in which you approach someone and ask if they will be your Valentine or friend and then they write their name in your book. The teacher gave me one, too, and surprisingly I ended up with quite a few pint-sized Valentines of my own! With the sugar nearly bursting each of their little hearts, the class party ended with a lovely rendition of Skid-a-ma-rink-a-dink-a-doo (if you want to learn, I can teach you) and then we discovered one more vilgilante stash of Valentine heart lollipops with cards that we inserted into their backpacks as they headed for the school bus. Unfortunately, I can not post pictures of my days at Kindergarten, as other people's kids' faces can not be displayed on the internet due to reasons of safety. But once the post office is up and running I can post pics of that.

GATHERING/EXHIBITION

I wanted to invite you all to this event happening at my house. If anyone is interested in exhibiting any of their work (objects or otherwise) or enacting any sort of group projects with those present, please let me know. There will be many great folks with few pretesions. We live about eleven miles north of downtown, so carpooling is always a good option.
Thanks, Nolan
nolan.calisch@gmail.com

Coincidence or Communication?

Today as I walked from Muddy Waters Café to Laurelhurst park I greeted a scruffy old crow who I think might have been the group elder balancing on a wire and keeping watch for her peoples. A block further just as I was about to cross the street and enter the main west entrance to Laurelhurst Park a crow landed in a tree right over my head and dropped something into the decaying leaves right in front of me. I picked it up and it was a peanut, raw and unsalted just like the ones out of which I made Legba's veve as a gift to the crow folk. Crows are smart birds, among the smartest. I don't think it was an accident. For all I know it might have been one of the peanuts I left for them in the Arboretum. It's a short flight from there to Laurelhurst as the crow flies so it could have been. That was wyrd. I guess I got a Valentine from the crows.

x-posted to UrBlog.

Nostalgia 3, socializing with the Random Gaming Club

Getting out of our classroom and getting out of our heads.

It's Wednesday afternoon. We head over to PSU Smith Memorial Center White Gallery to take in the (beautiful) documentation by MFA students in the Social Practice program;

(I remember) black and white photos of a neighborhood and it's people printed into a surround of text that propels you into the photo. For a moment, you're standing right next to... And a visual sea shelled-colored record of appreciation and wonderment for the life of a pet snail--a brilliant mixture of biology and interspecies love. www.manandmollusc.net/game_files/snail_draw.hmtl

(use this web address & learn to draw a snail; maybe you'll find snail love too)

We mill around and stare.

Then, Krystal gets us all down on the ground right there in the gallery to teach us how to do the Pigeon , a yoga posture to open the hips.

(so sorry I didn't get pictures of this but check out www.fitsugar.com/1615325 for a pic of the posture)

Next we wander upstairs to the 3rd floor in Smith. Someone notices flashing lights and some interesting sound effects coming out of a room on the north side of the hallway. It's the Random Select Gaming Club's afternoon of gaming. I mean, wow. We can't resist. The Club welcomes us in and shows us around. Some of us sit and game, some of us watch and dream, and then there are those who dance and sing and dance some more. This I got pictures of.

check out the Gamers and the club @

http://randomselect.groups.pdx.edu

Nostalgia 2, taking breaks

Our colleague Tasha took on the challenge to facilitate a body-centered break activity:  

Okay, take a deep breath and run as fast & far as you can while yelling on the top of your lungs. 

How to win? Yell the longest and run the fastest to get the furthest.  

Some ran so fast they were nothing but a blur.

There were those of us who didn't make it very far. But effort counts. (ah-hum, I took pics the whole time). .

And others whose determination was evident from the get-go.

And what about that yell? With everyone

cheering him on, Eric began and ended

loud and proud.   I was inspired.