The Young and the Wireless Blog

20th Century Technology, Lasting Results

BradHorn — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:41:27 +0000

This is a preview of the newest installment of our generation lap series. I won’t write much now. The video says what’s going on here. -Brad

As I walk this land

BradHorn — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 22:53:23 +0000

Interviewed an inventor of the Atomic Bomb, went out for the 4th, heard Yankee Doodle played over loudspeakers during fireworks, people sang along, put multimedia piece together til four in the morning while drinking many margaritas, fell asleep like the dead til two in the afternoon, slept through monstrous hailstorm that would’ve killed a small child, must’ve visited a Shaman or been taken on a journey by totem animal, back to the computer for the rest of the day while rain falls through rays of sunshine. New Mexico!!!!!

Demolition Derby

PhilipTenser — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:47:53 +0000

Loud, dirty, Americana. Happy 4th of July.

A look at how young and old from rural Iowa celebrated Independence day.

Two lives

Jennifer Ward — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:05:13 +0000

It’s the 4th of July, and our mountain town is being battered by rain and thunderstorms. I could curse the fact that we’ll have to postpone our outdoor shoot until tomorrow, or I could use the time to share what we’ve been up to.

Round three of this cross-country jaunt is going faster than the Apple 3G. We’re back for round two of Eagle County, and already five days in.

During the days leading up to this visit, I flip-flopped between hopeful trust that we’d find our second story, and anxiety, that old reliable companion. Everything we’d found on the first trip went only a third of the way. Questions jabbed at ideas, and cynicism badgered enthusiasm.

This experimental journalism thing is a lot like battling bipolar depression. As prepared as you must be for disappointment, you must also be for surprises.

The evening of our arrival in Eagle County, we met Cesar Castillo, a young filmmaker. His number had finally dropped in my inbox during the final days of our first visit — the last step in the chain of events that precipitates a story.

Last year in his broadcasting class at Eagle Valley High School, Cesar took a creative leap that garnered him some serious attention: he made a video about a classmate’s ongoing battle with a disability. By stepping out of his comedic comfort zone, Cesar formed a friendship with his subject and co-director, Ivan Venzor. For the first time, Cesar’s camera lens gave someone a voice.

As Cesar best says it, the video showed him that “just because he’s different doesn’t mean I’m better than him or he’s better than me, we’re all equal.”

The challenge for us was to figure out how best to tell the story of two lives, intersected by two very different types of technology. And while storytelling is always a process, here is a sneak peak of what we’ve been able to gather while sharing a few moments of two lives:

This one’s going out to Bruce

admin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:14:19 +0000

Our very own Bruce Strong (adviser, mentor, spiritual guru, and all around Mensch) is off to Atlantic City for some much deserved R&R. Have a blast, win some dough, make some memories with the family. We love you.

And the fact that this song is about a guy who goes to Atlantic City from out of state and does a bunch of awful things and has a bunch of awful things happen to him is to be ignored. Really, pay it no mind whatsoever.

Brad

7 kids. 1 laptop. 2 hours of tape.

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:40:34 +0000

Woe unto you if you ever decide to set up a video camera in a room full of kids under 15-years-old. Even kids who you thought were serious, thoughtful, and otherwise no-nonsense will instantly become the biggest goofs you’ve ever laid eyes upon. That’s what happened when I decided to record two hours in the life of the Miguel family’s laptop computer. I thought it would be the laptop that was tortured into submission (and it was…..eventually it had to be shutdown due to overheating). But in the end you know who got slapped around the most? Me. “Get away from the camera!” I had to say about every 10 minutes. All the poking and prodding of the poor camcorder. I think someone even kissed the lens.

But when I sat down to edit the tape it wasn’t the typing and the myspacing and the clickety-clacketing that made this video what it is. It’s the the kids. The kids being the biggest goofs you’ve ever laid eyes upon. Thank god they didn’t listen to me.

-Brad

Simulator Stories Sneak Peak

PhilipTenser — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:55:48 +0000

Andrew and I are almost finished with a week of editing and logging here in Syracuse and even while we get geared up for our trip to Iowa, we wanted to share this with you: A sneak peak of the work we’ve done with our tours of simulators on Fort Campbell. We’re working on a larger comparison between these military training devices and the video games that people play at home.

The final story we are planning will include four chapters, one for each simulator that we visited.

The Engagement Skills Trainer (featured in this sneak peak)
The Blackhawk Helicopter Simulator
The Vehicular Convoy Combat Trainer
The Call for Fire (Artillery) Simulator

On Gumption

Jennifer Ward — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:38:29 +0000

As we near the end of our first visit to Eagle county, our time here has started to boom at least as much as this eponymous town. All the little fits and starts have started to teach me a thing or two about gumption.

Alluring as some abandoned things are (like the old mining town we stumbled across last night), abandoned stories leave a much hollower echo. It’s hard to chase a hope even in it’s infancy. I think storytellers like us are stubborn that way. It’s hard to just let things go sometimes.

And yet here’s another day, touching my shoulder like the afternoon breeze to say keep trying. Here I am, wishing we didn’t have to leave. As I sit beneath the day’s late haze shrouding Mt. Sopris, a baseball hat clad man strums chords behind me. His fingers are languidly patient, never rushing into melody or silence. The turbid mountain weather dips into an evening for walking, dining, and laughing our way into the fading warmth.

As I sit and mull over the healthy array of story ideas we’ve pursued here in Eagle, I can’t help but think maybe it’s just luck. And then I ask myself, do I believe in luck?

Maybe. But then again, maybe luck only follows well-laid trails. Gumption is the groundwork, and we’ll return with plenty of mud on our boots.

Hiking up the upside-down mountain

Melissa Romero — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:07:17 +0000

It was that time again.

Remember when Brad and I said “Screw it” in Los Alamos and took a day off to explore northern New Mexico?

Yesterday, it was that time again.

Why should we have sat in our hotel feeling frustrated and bad for ourselves all day? More denied accesses, people hanging up on Brad, and watching crappy television just wasn’t going to work for us one more day. It simply made no sense. So we decided to drive a couple of hours to where else? Back to Los Alamos.

…

Just kidding.

We drove to the the Grand Canyon.

Brad has been there several times. Heck, he’s even camped all the way at the bottom. I, on the other hand, have never been. We drove the long way towards the national park, through Sedona (the land there looks like Mars) and Flagstaff.

My first sight of the canyon was at the first possible viewpoint. There were numerous tourists there, as expected, but it really didn’t take away from the ridiculously beautiful grandeur of the canyon. Again, it was just impossible to capture the magnificence of what I saw through a camera lens. (An older man scoffed about me to his wife when he saw me pull out my cell phone: “Ha, that girl is taking a photo with her phone when she has one helluva nice camera.” Sorry sir, just taking a video to send to friends and family! Technology, eh?)

We decided to do a short photo/audio version of our one question project: How would you use technology to rebuild the world? To give you an idea of how many tourists were there, we only managed to talk to two Americans. The rest of the people we interviewed were from all over the world: Australia, Holland, London, the Netherlands, and Germany. “Man, I’ve seen some nice sights in New Zealand but this is just ….” one young man trailed off in awe.

Around four we went for a hike down the canyon. Just the perfect time, when the sun isn’t at its highest point. Not only that, but we basically had the whole trail to ourselves! Now, going down the canyon, not a big deal. Going back up? A bit of a bigger deal.

I swear, at times I just wanted to sit and sleep there for the night, hoping a rescue team would find me so I could avoid walking back up. From me there was lots of heavy breathing, frequent water breaks, many a whimper, and a couple of expletives heard scattered throughout the hike back up. I may be a track athlete, but hiking is just a completely different workout experience. Especially when you’re walking up thousands of feet in elevation. But boy, did I feel good about myself once I reached the top of the trail.

And for the canyon to be surrounding me by all sides, the beautiful orange, brown, and red cliffs reflected by the setting sun…Saying “screw it” that day and waking up with my leg muscles screaming at me in protest this morning…

Totally worth it.

Day 8, Clermont: Tables Turned

Racquel Asa — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:27:45 +0000

It’s not easy being on the other side of the table, especially when you’re used to being the journalist and asking all the questions and doing the legwork.

Now, the ball was in the court of someone else.

David Donald with the Daily Commercial put me in a position that I’m not that used to being in: the interviewee.

Donald put us on the front page of the South Lake Press paper today and talked about what our goal and mission is here in Clermont. It turned out to be a fruitful article since we’ve already received several phone calls from people interested to talk with us.

So, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing that the tables were turned because it put us in a place where there are so many more people to meet and so many more stories to hear.

Read our article.

-Racquel