The Brothers Green IRL

This weekend I had a fun time meeting two of my favorite YouTube vloggers John and Hank Green of the vlogbrothers. I discovered the vlogbrothers and their project Brotherhood 2.0 last July when Hanks very popular song "Accio Deathly Hallows"was featured on the front page of YouTube. After watching his video and his brother's response video I was hooked.

It couldn't have come at a better time. I was about to graduate from college and had already started my first full-time job. In the weeks after receiving my diploma I went through post-college depression (that's according to this one blogger I found on a Google search). Which means I'd graduated a year early from college and left all the friends I had to sit in an office for 8 hours+ a day. Who wouldn't be depressed?

The only bright spot in my day, besides getting off work at 5 p.m., was lunch time. I didn't know anyone and often didn't have transportation, so I closed my office door and had lunch with the vlogbrothers. They were about 150 videos into the B2.0 project, a project which had the two brothers who live in different states communicating every week day back and forth in YouTube videos, so I had a lot of videos to watch to get caught up.

I really looked forward to lunch everyday. I had so much fun with the Green brother videos! I now know I'm a made of awesome nerdfighter and have read all of John Green's books. It's been a great journey getting to know the Green brothers and the other awesome nerdfighters through the forums at the various nerdfighter Web sites, first www.brotherhood2.com and now http://nerdfighters.ning.com.

It's very hard to explain the awesomenss of nerdfighting. The inside jokes, phrases and songs are really best experienced first through the videos. Of course if you're coming across this for the first time you have a long way to go to get caught up. The vlogbrothers currently have 369 videos up on YouTube and will have a lot more before the month is up.


All of this background information leads up to my meeting the brothers Green on the first stop of the Great American Tour de Nerdfighting 2008 in Plano, TX last Sunday. I thought I'd be nervous meeting John, Hank and The Katherine (Hank's wife) after watching them for more than a year, but it was actually like meeting friends. They didn't know me, but I knew a lot about them. (I didn't want to make too many assumptions because I learned the folly of that in John's latest novel, Paper Towns.) They were even more awesome in person as they are via YouTube. It was also great meeting other Texas nerdfighters. We all have a shared history through the vlogbrothers and it was very easy to talk to complete strangers because of that commonality.

The visit was short, sweet and totally awesome. The Tour de Nerdfighting continues as the Green brothers travel the country meeting others just like me. Thanks to John and Hank for never forgetting to be awesome and teaching others the value of being a nerd.

Hank and John Green, brothers for over 27 years, decided not to write to each other during all of 2007, and instead make daily video blogs.

Though the project "Brotherhood 2.0" has now ended, they decided to keep updating the YouTube channel at least once a week. Additionally, the community of nerdfighters that they helped create is now stronger than ever, and lives at: http://www.nerdfighters.com

John Green is the author of the novels "Looking for Alaska," "An Abundance of Katherines" and "Paper Towns." His personal site is http://www.sparksflyup.com

Hank Green runs the Web site http://www.ecogeek.org.

Photos
TOP: Hank (left) and John (right) walking up to the Plano library where we had our nerdfighter gathering.
RIGHT: John signed my copy of Paper Towns. You should go buy a copy today or if you live in Waco and are really nice to books, you can borrow mine.

Student’s passion for graffiti as art

When Jose Sandoval sees a white wall, he pictures only possibilities: bright colorful murals, dark meaningful social commentary or complicated letters forming art that only the he can read.

He is a street artist not a delinquent. He is someone who sees a wall as a canvas that can constantly change, but he didn’t start out that way. As a child growing up, Sandoval went through many art phases. He started with cartoons, then anime and on to fine art pieces in high school always looking for something bigger and more creative.

“I’ve gone through a lot of phases,” he said. “I’m still trying to find my signature style I guess.”

After high school, he came to TSTC to study Advertising Design & Print, but in a typography class he hit another type of wall.

“It got to a point in one of my classes that I couldn’t come up with any designs I liked,” he said. “It was all stuff to please everyone else and I wasn’t happy with it, so I dropped everything.”

Sandoval took two semesters off from college to find his creative voice. He’d been introduced to graffiti by another ADP student who had grown up in the street art scene of California and it intrigued him. So he studied it, tearing through books, movies, documentaries and Web sites that took him through the history, meaning and culture behind the art that’s been called bigger than the renaissance.

“I took the hiatus to really reevaluate my life and find a fountain of youth to rejuvenate my creativity,” Sandoval said. “In graffiti I found my motivation.It’s very competitive and I like that about it. It’s a creative competition to see who can come up with something new that hasn’t been done before.”

Learning to make spray paint art has been a slow process for Sandoval. He immersed himself in it for a year to get the level he’s at now and still sees a lot of room for improvement. He started out with sketches and has since filled three notebooks full of graffiti ideas and practice. Though he describes his first attempts as “pretty horrible,” Sandoval said he found a love for the medium.

“I’m very impatient and spray paint is my kind of medium. It dries fast and you just add more layers,” he said. “It was like I was made to paint with it.”

He’s also become more socially aware of the laws involved with graffiti. At first he assumed the penalty for unauthorized tagging was fine or a slap on the wrist, but after spending several hours in jail and answering to his mother who bailed him out, he sought permission to use walls for canvasses.

He spoke to businesses with large visible walls, showed them examples of what he would paint, and now has a wall at 25th and Morrow that uses for practice. From that wall, word got around about his talent and Mission Waco commissioned a mural from him which now decorates two of its outside walls.

Though commissioned works are still few and far between for Sandoval, he faithfully paints and repaints his first wall once a month as an ever-changing work of art. He returned to TSTC this past summer and plans to finish his ADP degree
relying on graffiti as a hobby.

“TSTC is teaching me what I can do with art as a career and graffiti is the motivation for me to come up with new things,” he said.

He continually sketches bigger and more elaborate graffiti pieces filling page upon page in his notebooks. He gathers inspiration from several Web sites and artists from around the world and rarely talks to classmates and teachers about his street art.

“I just want to be known for my work,” Sandoval said

Knot Into Weddings

I've done a lot of thinking about weddings lately. I know this is something women are supposed to think about, but it's not a normal activity for me. I recently shot my first wedding and had another today, and while adore photography, I don't think I'll be setting up a side business in weddings.

Why? Well for one thing, it's nerve racking, extremely tiring and time consuming. (I know, that was three things) After being a wedding photographer I wonder why anyone would ever get married twice. The first one is tiring enough! I also wonder if wedding planners or photographers who've attended hundreds of weddings choose the courthouse or small ceremonies when they tie the knot, because 1. It's too much like work or 2. They've realize the huge, hairy deal that we've made weddings isn't worth it.

That's certainly how I feel at this point. I may change my mind in the future, but the principle of spending so much money and time on an event that is so momentary is kind of repulsive to me. At the same time, it's extremely self-centered. I'm not saying this to criticize my friends who've had big, beautiful weddings, but because I don't know if my values are the same.

It seems to me that it shouldn't be so expensive to start out a new married life when you certainly won't have that much money to fall back on post marriage. I wonder if the big wedding idea is another one of life's myths. I might just start a myth series on here. The myths I refer to are include Prince charming myths, the disposable myth, stuff myth, etc.

The problem with myths, like the big-weddings myth, is that we're trained from infancy what they should look and be like. It is not often that we question myths because of the tradition and the herd mentality of humans. But I digress. Suffice it to say, I'm not sure what to think about weddings. I'm in the inquisitive stage. Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think, especially if you're married!

The photo is from the McClure wedding I shot the first weekend in Oct. I've been editing the photos this weekend, and I really like this one.

No Longer to Linger

This morning my rallying cry came from an old Baptist hymn, "I Am Resolved." Since the season's change has brought on cooler morning temps, I have lazed in bed for hours past the alarm. This sets off an unpleasant chain reaction of rushing to get ready for work, attempting to prepare breakfast in the space of 5 minutes and running in to the office 20 min. late.

But I can't be a slugabed forever, so I resolved this Monday would be different. It's amazing how well the hymns lyrics fit what I was feeling as I turned the 5:45 a.m. alarm off. "I am resolved no longer to linger,Charmed by the world’s delight, Things that are higher, things that are nobler,These have allured my sight.I will hasten to Him, hasten so glad and free; Jesus, greatest, highest, I will come to Thee."

I do delight in the comfort of my bed, but I needed to hasten to the tasks at hand. Namely, cleaning my Chacos, washing the dishes, making a fantastic french press of espresso coffee and writing this post before getting pretty for the day. So now as a savor the last few bites of ginger granola and yogurt, I can reflect on what God has in store for me today.

"I am resolved to follow the Savior,
Faithful and true each day;
Heed what He sayeth, do what He willeth,
He is the living Way."


Author's note: I fried some shark steaks last week and my house has smelled horrible since. I've tried burning candles, setting out baking soda, leaving my back door open, etc, but nothing worked for very long. I finally got a solution from the Martha Stewart Homekeeping Handbook:

Ingredients:
1 Lemon
5-10 Whole Cloves
Water
Small Saucepan

Slice the lemon into 5-6 slices and combine the lemon, clove and water (to an inch from the top)of the saucepan. Simmer for as long as you like.

This has not only effectively eradicated the shark smell, but has made the whole house smell like fall. Be sure to keep an eye on it if you plan to simmer for an hour or more, the water will evaporate. Just add more water as needed.

Thanks to Waco twitterer http://twitter.com/jraddin for reminding me I had a blog to tend to, and to http://breadsite.org for their collection of scanned open source hymns.

Greenwashing’s powerful effect on consumerism

What do you think of when you hear the word greenwashing?

I asked a few students and got some interesting responses. One thought it was a new environmentally friendly laundry soap; another pictured someone scrubbing grass like you would a tile floor or hosing down a tree to clean its leaves.

Images of someone taking soap and water to their lawn is amusing, but the true meaning of greenwashing is a serious topic that effects consumerism in a big way.

Put simply, greenwashing is a term that describes a company, government or organization that advertises positive environmental practices while acting in the opposite.

We’ve all seen the revolution in the store aisles. Next to the paper towels you always buy is a new option decorated with green leafy tendrils to advertise its environmental sustainability.

Now you’re faced with a new dilemma. Do you choose the tree-killing chemically treated triple-ply value brand or go with most likely more expensive tree-planting brand? More and more consumers, fueled by incessant media coverage of the green movement and the increased popularity of buying organic, untreated products, are picking up the expensive “eco-friendly” advertised brands.

But how green are the products themselves? All too often consumers get sucked into cool advertising that sells a product not much different than the value brand.

In fact, according to an independent study conducted by TerraChoice Environmental Marketing Inc. in 2007, more than 99 percent of environmental claims on consumer products are demonstrably false or risk misleading their intended audiences.

TerraChoice defined what they call the “Six Sins of Greenwashing” to describe the different falsifying claims on these so-called green products. The most common sins committed are the hidden trade-off and the sins of no proof and vagueness.

The hidden trade-off is fairly straight forward. Those paper towel companies that promote their recycled content or sustainable harvesting don’t mention the environmental impact of their manufacturing processes, which aren’t so green.

The sins of no proof and vagueness are where the green paint hits the fan. Product and service claims that provide no evidence or certification of their validity are nothing short of fraud. My favorite is the “all natural” claim. As TerraChoice points out, arsenic is natural, as is uranium, mercury and formaldehyde. All of which are poisonous.

So what’s the big deal? Advertisers have always lied to us to influence consumer buying power.

The problem lies within the reason behind buying green products. Unlike other marketing ploys that try to convince us either to buy at the place with the best price or buy the product with the best value no matter what the cost. Buying green is buying into a philosophy that supports the environment.

False and misleading advertisers give consumers the sense that purchasing their product supports that philosophy. The result is the uniformed majority pay more for a lot of hot air, and true environmentalists have no faith in green claims.

So far the only standards used to measure environmental products and services are a few certification organizations. There is no Federal standard required to display environmental claims on product labels.

The best bet is to look for products that have the logo of an outside certification organization. Eco-logo, Green Seal, Green Label and Energy Star, among others, are recognizable certifications that require total company analysis before giving a product a environmentally friendly rating.

The next time you’re in the paper towel aisle, don’t get greenwashed. If the product doesn’t support its claims using an outside agency or at the very least provide proof on its own Web site, ignore the green paint and cute pictures of baby trees. You’ll save a little green in the process.

Cartoon by Jose Sandoval,an Advertising Design & Print student at Texas State Technical College.

Need for Speed: CNS instructor enjoys high gear sports

By Sarah-Jane Sanders
TSTC Coordinator of Publications

For Computer Networking & Systems Administration Master Instructor Jimmy Summers, risk taking is no light matter. But through years of practice and proficiency, he has found the rewards of extreme activities exceed the risks as much as the ocean exceeds a kiddie pool.

"I’ve done some things few other people will do," Summers said. "I’ve experienced free-falling from up to 14,500 feet and have seen some of the most beautiful sunsets from in the clouds. I’ve played hockey with people from the NHL (National Hockey League) and with personnel from teams like the Dallas Stars. And in motorcycle racing, I’ve ridden with some of the best people in the world."

But, Summers would be the first to tell you he didn’t start out in the big leagues.

On the road
He bought his first motorcycle right after graduating from college and had no intentions of racing.

"At the time, I thought racing was for guys with sub-high school educations with nothing better to do than run circles around a racetrack."

However, after attending a few races and making friends with some big name racing families, he cautiously took up the sport.

"I didn’t want to be one of those (motorcycle death) statistics, so I bought one of the leather suits that the racers wear with the boots, helmet and gloves."

Summers rode in the racing circuits for four years until an accident at an association Grand Nationals race caused significant damage to his motorcycle and left him with minor injuries.

Despite this, his skills and abilities later qualified him as a Rider Coach candidate for the internationally known California Superbike School.

Recently, he has taken up teaching racing techniques with the RideSmart motorcycle school based in Austin. He also continues to hone his racing skills, and often rides his bike to work.

In the sky
Skydiving is another of the various daredevil sports Summers enjoys. He began jumping while he was a student studying at A&M University and joined A&M’s skydiving club soon after seeing a campus demonstration.

Summers’ first jump story, however, sounds like a recipe for disaster. His parachute ripcord caught on the plane, causing it to deploy prematurely. Then, he opened a reserve chute, but found the navigation toggles had not been fastened correctly which prevented him from steering. After missing several dangerous obstacles, including a major highway, a construction site and power lines, Summers touched down about 1,000 yards from the target landing area.

Throwing caution quite literally to the wind, Summers made a second jump the next weekend, and now has approximately 190 safe landings under his belt, as well as several levels of jump licenses and awards.

I made a second jump to see what the first jump should have been like," he said, "and I’ve been hooked ever since."

Though his skydiving habits began on a whim, Summers said he happened into ice hockey because of a girl.

Around the rink
To impress a woman he was dating, Summers planned a special date that would end with a bit of romantic ice skating. In preparation for the date, he took skating lessons at a rink in Dallas.

During first lesson, he ran into an old skydiving buddy who encouraged him to try out hockey. Later, when things fell through with his girlfriend before the skating date could be arranged, he stayed with the skating lessons and took up the popular ice sport.

At the time, Summers lived and worked in Waco, but made a 100-mile drive to the nearest ice rink in Dallas to continue his skating classes and hockey games. When a position for a youth and children’s hockey program coordinator and team coaching assistant with the now disbanded Waco Wizards opened, Summers jumped on the opportunity to practice and teach hockey in town.

He worked with area youth and children, instructing them in basic hockey techniques so they could show off their skills between periods of Wizards hockey games. From there, Summers took a job coaching the fledgling Baylor hockey club, and later went on to guide the Texas A&M hockey club to its all-time best season.

Currently, he is coaching less, but finds time to play hockey at least once a week for a men’s recreation league in College Station.

Pushing his limits
Despite his long history of daredevil sports, Summers has kept his injuries to a minimum. A few broken fingers and ribs, a broken collarbone and some bumps and bruises are the most damage he has sustained.

Some might call him lucky, but Summers say it is his caution and practice with the sports he enjoys that has kept him free from major accidents.

"There’s a level of expertise required to do these activities well, and a mind set you have to have to do them right. If you learn it, then it becomes very challenging and satisfying," he said.

Throughout his career of extreme activities, Summers said he has been driven by more than just risk taking.

"There is something else to it," he said. "It’s not just the thrill. It’s not just being a daredevil. It’s deeper … It pushes my limits, it pushes my knowledge, increases my faith in God and my appreciation for this earth and what he’s given me. He’s given me the ability to do all this."

So, what’s next for Summers? He said scuba diving and piloting are things he’d like to consider as he pursues his next adventure.