Media Monday: Should we power down?

Seems like everybody is talking about "hyperconnectivity" and information overload in the past few days. Friday night I heard Josh Tesh ask on his radio show if the internet is making us stupid:

Is Google making us stupid? It sounds harsh, but some experts say yes. Neurologists and psychologists have discovered that when we read, our brains process Internet pages differently than they process printed pages. A difference that affects how much we learn – and even alters the way our brains work. That’s because the human brain “rewires” itself depending on how it’s used, something that neurologists call “plasticity."

Tesh argues that we need to turn off the computers and allow time for critical thinking and analysis of the vast amount of information we're reading online. Time to process and create our own thoughts and opinions about the subject matter, instead of consuming more and more short blurbs, news-bytes.

Another article on Poynter addresses this issue. The writer, Steve Meyer refects on his South by Southwest Interactive festival saying:

The challenge at an event like South by Southwest is that you spend all your time packing new ideas into your head and not enough time processing them. William Powers, author of “Hamlet’s BlackBerry,” would have told all those people to stop running around and staring at screens, and instead create some mental space to unpack everything they had seen and heard.

Meyer also quotes David Carr of the New York Times on "hyperconnectivity" saying he's so busy keeping up with email, twitter and RSS that:

“Lately I’ve been so busy promoting what I do,” Carr lamented, “that I don’t do what I do.”

So media friends, what do you think? Do we spend too much time consuming on a superficial surface level and not enough time reaching a deeper level of analysis and critical thinking?

Tri-City friends: Go see Katie in "Mary Stuart"

My amazing, talented BFF Katie Hunt** is playing the starring role in "Mary Stuart" at the Richand Players and it opens tonight! If you are in or near Tri-Cities in the next three weeks, please and go see her for me.

Richland Players is the community theater in the Tri-Cities. Here's the theater's synopsis of the play:

"Schiller's Mary Stuart in a new version by Peter Oswald is being produced with an industrial rock theme. Schiller's ability to mix private and public worlds and his profound understanding of real politics assures that what you get from this production is not just some obscure history lesson (one that takes great liberties with the truth), but a fast-moving narrative about the imprisoning effect of power. It has all the sex, politics, religious bickering, double-dealing and treachery of contemporary drama."

Should be exciting, so go see it!

Performances: March 25, 26, April 1, 2, 8 and 9
Curtain: 8 p.m. (Get there by 7:30 p.m.*)
Matinee: 2 p.m. April 3 (Get there by 1 p.m.*)
Ticket prices: $12.00; $10.00 for seniors and students

Call the box office to reserve tickets: 509-943-1991
Or book them online: http://www.richlandplayers.org/

Break a leg, Katie!

*From me, the drama geek: Please make a habit of showing up for live plays AT LEAST a half hour early to get good seats. Walking in after the show has begin is super rude for the audience and the people who spent weeks preparing to go on stage. Community theaters like this one are usually all volunteer. And please turn off your cell phone. (Stepping off my soapbox now) Plus, pre-shows usually have a great social vibe to chat, check out the program, etc.

** Yep, she caught the bouquet at my wedding and I love this picture of her.

Friday Fun: What's happening on Anchorage's street corners?

Sadly, people standing on the street corner with cardboard signs is no surprising sight in Anchorage. However, these guys did catch my attention over the past couple days. Forgive the iPhone photo quality.

1. Josh had his facebook friends participate in a caption contest for the left photo captured at the corner of Dimond Blvd. and Old Seward. I later found our from a co-worker that this locally-known personality is a regular at this corner AND a regualar caller to one of the radio stations. So the deejay's decided to get him the cell phone he's chatting on to encourage his calls.


2. This is just blocks from my house, at the corner of Minnesota and Spenard, and I almost missed it in my 5 o'clock drive haze. But alas, I looked to the left while waiting for my green and saw this glorious site. I wonder what his story is... Lost bet? You can't see it in the photo, but he's also holding a guitar in his left hand.

Sneak peak at one of my projects

Isn't it cool too see one of your projects come freshly shrink-wrapped from the printers? These are wedding invitations and RSVP cards I designed for my friends Meghan and Joel. Of course they'll look way more awesome in the chic silver pochette evelopes she ordered for them. I'll definitely post a picture of THAT when I have one in my hands.

I want to go to there: Tap Root

We decided to get out of the house Tuesday for a date night and ended up at Tap Root on Spenard. The visit was part of our quest to explore our new neighborhood and patronize the local businesses in Spenard, our quarky West Anchorage neighborhood.

The restaurant/bar features live music every night and Tuesday was open mike. The lovely lady above was a singer/songwriter who played  guitar and ukulele. She had a sweet voice singing songs such as an adorable peice she wrote called "Oly Oxen Free," using childhood game phrases to describe a past relationship.

The Taproot bills it's menu as fresh, organic and from scratch selection for "meat eaters and vegetarians alike." From their website:

"Everything from our kitchen is prepared to order, fresh from scratch. At Tap Root we focus on wholesome, natural foods, and use only organic & free range proteins, and locally grown produce (whenever possible, this is Alaska)."

Oh goodie, steak and potatoes for the hubby and a vegetarian appetizer platter for moi. Mine plate had a medley of pita bread, hummus, feta, basamic vinegar onions, roasted red peppers, kalamata olives and a heartburn inducing portion of roasted garlic. Yumm.

The drink selection featured 24 specialty beers on tap. The whiskey and bourbon selection accounted for several pages of the menu.

Tap Root is located at 3300 Spenard Road and is open from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. daily.

"I want to go to there" is a new occasional places feature for Chic 907. It's named in honor of a favorite phrase from my hero, Tina Fey's, character Liz Lemon on "30 Rock."

Alaska SeaLife Center

The Alaska SeaLife Center was the highlight of our trip to Seward last weekend. It's no Sea World, but it is the only aquarium in Alaska, and it packs a lot in a small space including a huge puffin exhibit, and both underwater and above ground viewing of stellar sea lions, seals and more. I especially enjoyed watching the kids as the stellar sea lion continuously looped by the main display window like the photo of Isabelle above. Although they also seemed to enjoy the hands on pool station where you could gently touch starfish, sea anemones, hermit crab and other underwater critters.

 

At first I wondered why they were selling finger paintings in the main lobby, but after taking a moment to read the sign, I realized these are no ordinary paintings. The artists are residents of the sealife center: puffins and sea mammals. All the proceeds go to animal conservation and supporting the SeaLife Center.

Dock walking in Seward

I dragged my family out to the docks outside our hotel Saturday to take a walk in Seward's small boat harbor. The breeze was pretty much bitter cold as we looked a boat names and watched where the water lapped over the edges of thin ice. It reminded me of dock walking with my family in the San Juan Islands and Canadian Gulf Islands during many summer trips with our little boat over the years growing up and in college. Hopefully I'll be able to take my boys back to my old stomping grounds before too long.

Unrelated, but also in Seward:

Media Monday: Twitter celebrates fifth birthday

Twitter's fifth birthday is today. The microblogging website asks users to post "what's on your mind" in 140 characters or less. To celebrate the social media landmark, some fun Twitter facts:

• FIRST POST: "Inviting Coworkers"


• CREATOR: Jack Dorsey


• TWEETS PER DAY: 140 million


• ORIGINAL NAME: twttr


• EMPLOYEES: 400


• NEW USERS EACH DAY: 450,000


• USERS: 200 million


• DAILY SEARCHES: 800,000

 Sources: The Atlantic, Wikipedia

The road to Seward is paved in ... slush

We took a mini-trip to Seward on Friday and Saturday to celebrate Joshua's birthday and finish Davin's spring break with a little getaway. We stopped a beluga point and ran around in the snow a little while on the way. The snow was getting slushy, Cook Inlet was crusted with chunks of melting ice and Davin declared it too warm for a coat.

Friday Fun: Denali and the drift

We had stunning views of Denali [aka Mount McKinley, for you non-Alaskans] and Mount Foraker on the was to Trapper Creek on Saturday. We stopped the car several times to make pictures of it.

The last time we pulled over, when I took the upper shot, I ended up thigh deep in the snowplow drift. The ice crust collapsed under my foot right before I hopped down, even though it held up through several minutes of picture making before deciding to give way.

Happy Friday and have a wonderful weekend!

I didn't expect to wake up to this today

I was hoping for green, not white. It hadn't snowed in weeks, so I was surprised to find my car and driveway looking like this, this morning. I was already running behind and was not pleased to have to de-snow everything. Then I got stuck behind the guy that drives 10 mph and straddles lanes every time it snows on half my drive to work.

I hope you're St. Patrick's Day got off to a better start than mine. Enjoy the celebration of everything Irish. I hope Obama is having the ultimate celebration at his St. Patrick's Day reception hosting the Irish president today, as I heard he would be on NPR while strolling along the snowy streets.

Cheers and good luck!

Cabin Fever Reliever

We drove to Trapper Creek on Saturday for the community's Cabin Fever Reliever. Davin was participating in a fundraiser to support his field trip to Katchemak Bay in a few weeks. There was food, pony and dogsled rides, snow sculpture contests, and games such as the egg toss and tug-a-war.

We even learned how to make a wooden spoon with only a block of wood, hot coals and a hatchet from the sourdoughs (old-timer Alaskans) by the campfire.

Iditarod traffic and another Alaskan sunset

I love the skies in Alaska this time of year. I took this from the Parks Highway on the way to Willow weekend before last.

We just happened to by driving against the Iditarod traffic. A 23-mile line of mostly trucks and SUVs, many of them towing flatbeds of snowmachines, people returning from watching the Iditarod's official start in Willow.

Media Monday: State of the Media 2011

The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism released it's State of the News Media 2011 this morning. It states that the news industry is beginning to recover from the economic downturn but still faces major challenges, not only in adapting to new technology and connecting readers to revenue generating products, but also in it's vast uncertainty.

"Beneath all this, however, a more fundamental challenge to journalism became clearer in the last year. The biggest issue ahead may not be lack of audience or even lack of new revenue experiments. It may be that in the digital realm the news industry is no longer in control of its own future."

The report covers a study on community news websites specifically focusing on Seattle, which is dear to my heart being the big city in my home state, Washington.

Wander on over and check out the state of the industry.

My mind is on Japan and not Friday Fun today

In lieu of a Friday Fun post I'm thinking positive thoughts for the the people affected by the earthquake in Japan and subsequent tsunamis. Especially for my former Daily Evergreen newspaper cronies, who currently reside in Japan. Thanks goodness for Facebook and being the good journalists they are, I've seen posts from both of them letting friends and family know that they are OK, but definitely feeling the tremors.

Above I've posted the USGS earthquake map. This is a really cool interactive map where you can see recent earthquakes in depth and magnitude. Check it out here. I know I'm always visiting this site when we feel Alaskan tremors.

I checked out newseum too, to see which of the West coast papers caught the news before deadline last night. The ADN stripped a story down the left column of the paper that landed on my doorstep this morning. This Hawaii paper stuck out to me:

Have a wonderful weekend with good thoughts and prayers for those in Japan and people affected by the aftershocks and tsunamis worldwide.