It turns out beavers are territorial. We didn’t even put in the river until midnight, maybe a little after — a combination of piss-poor planning and fascination with the bargains at Wal-Mart.

Friday night it twas, and the Chattahoochee was cold as hell. There were five of us, an army raft and a small floaty-guy to handle the cooler. I can’t say exactly where we got on the water for security reasons, but it was somewhere near a road named after an Irish pub and a leprechaun in the “rural” part of Gwinnett.

It didn’t take 15 minutes before it started.

“Swack-pop!” A beaver’s tail hit the water, circled, followed, and hit it again. I guess their stomping grounds run about a mile or so, then it’d stop for another 15 minutes until we made our way into the next battle ground.

some kind of ‘danger’ sign.

You can’t really hear it in the video, but that was, indeed, a beaver swack. Now beavers aren’t scary, but when you’re in 50-degree water and an inflatable raft one beaver bite could (quite literally) be the death of you.

It went on for hours: Them swacking and us spotlighting and the river pushing us on. There was some kind of “danger” sign, but what do they know. It’s hard to read in the dark anyways.

Around two in the morning we started looking for a spot to set up shop. We found a shelf up off the left of the river. It was two-tiered, with a bottom level for fishing, a top for a fire and camp – and not a living soul in sight.

Staying downtown, I haven’t seen that many stars in a long time.

This is about the time the electronics started to fail. My iPhone was the first to go, so all you get is a few mediocre night shots. Next came the Androids. Someone had a camera, a nice Canon point-in-shoot, but the river got that too sometime early the next day.

“small floaty-guy to handle the cooler,” with a Tiki for protection.

This is nice. Not the electronics thing, but the trip in general. Yeah, it’s Georgia and it’s the South, but you can’t do this type of adventuring these days – not without a three-hour drive and a designated campsite. Even then, if you grab a campsite, it’s über civil – music off at 10pm and a family camper just 10-feet away and such.

This was a relic. A reminder of the Gaw-ja I grow up with. A reminder of a time when people didn’t own every square inch of everything that existed… When you could look out at the night and not see house lights dotting the distance… Okay, it wasn’t that long ago, but still. Appreciate it for what it’s worth.

Dawn Breaks

We would have hit the rapids early, but you know how life on the river goes. We were as slow moving as the current, with a headache and no coffee.

The best part about this kind of wilderness is, when you run out of Keystone (or something less important, like food), you just float on down to the next bridge and pull off to the side.

Kroger‘s always just up the hill, and that roasted chicken is as good as they come.

I’ve got to hand it to my wife. She saved our asses. Or, more accurately, our overly pasty shoulders, backs and feet. She packed the sunscreen.

We still all got burnt, but it was the difference between itchy burnt and bubbly, peel-yo-skin burnt.

Somewhere in there we stopped on this island with a few fly fishermen about. The water was shallow there. So shallow you could walk from the banks to the center without getting more than your ankles wet.

That’s the thing about the river: in some spots it’s three-inches all the way across. Walk down river a few yards and it might be 20-feet to the bottom.

On the island, there were trails. After so much time on the boat the island swayed gently side-to-side. It was a reprieve, for we were doomed.

Around 6pm or so we realized we’d never make it. We were hoping for Vinings, but still hadn’t hit Interstate 400. If you didn’t know, that’s a long ride even in the car. The prospects of another night in the “wilderness” started to sink in.

To top it off, there was the matter of the car keys, which we won’t get into, but it meant we had to call in reinforcements. Three of us kept on, hell bent on at least making 400 where we’d meet back up with the crew – or, if nothing else, some point unknown we could deem a successful destination.

But the creeping currents and sweeping bends of the ‘Hooch had other plans.

Eventually, we packed it in behind a McMansion the size of Disney world. The rich folks were nice and didn’t mind, or were at least nice enough not to let us know they minded.

The Pieces Left Behind

All the phones died, of course, or we’d have known it was a good four-hour float to the next off ramp.

Back on the river and in the daylight, the camera sank like a stone. With a little foresight, we’d have gone in after the memory card, but at least we’ve still got the memories and this blog post.

One of the sleeping bags was the next thing to go, but we managed to reel it back in. Then went my pants from the bag, phone and wallet and all, but again we got it back. Then was J’s cell phone. Not in the river, but on the rock under the bridge at our last pitstop.

By the time we made it back to civilization that night it was damn near midnight, again. Exhausted, I unloaded my gear in the driveway and began the arduous process of drying everything out.

That’s about the time, after the boys pulled off and with absolutely no phone between the lot of us, I realized the wallet was gone.

Day 3 and I drove back to Gwinnett. There was a little recreation area right by the bridge, and I was sure my wallet was sitting on one of those damn boulders underneath. It wasn’t, but there was a cracked and sea-stained phone there waiting on me.

About the same time, folks started to wake up in there respective corners of the world. My wallet was in the driveway of one of those houses, in a truck, in a puddle of water, but at least it was there.

“Sir, I will gladly trade you a cell phone for a wallet,” I said.

the wallet dries…

The thing is, come to find out, the river’s “closed” at night. How the hell you close a river I’ll never understand.

Not to mention, you’re really not supposed to raft in the parts we took on – at least it’s not wise, they say. We didn’t see another rafter the whole damn trip.

Someone said it was impossible to make the connection. That there was a dam somewhere between us and our destination. We never made it that far, so I guess it was impossible, but I like to think we’d have found a way had our ignorance and ill-preparedness not gotten the best of us.

Looking back, none of us had any idea what we were getting into. Hell, we had to stop and buy flashlights on the way. Would I do it again? Maybe. Probably, but with enough insight and supplies to make it feasible.

My advice to you? Stick with the beaten path on this one, or at least shoot me an e-mail and get some more detailed advice. If you need a little more structure still, check out these guys.

Lastly, keep an eye out for flesh-eating bacteria.

where we should have made it.

This morning my brief review of KAWS’ “DOWN TIME” exhibition at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta publishes on JJIE.org as part of a series that looks at graffiti’s role in our lives and cities around the country.

When I went to the High I didn’t even have plans to write the review. If I had, I would have brought more than just an iPhone — but in retrospect my beaten, battered and pollen-saturated iPhone turned out to provide the perfect medium.

I’d encourage you to read the full review for a little background, but in brief Brooklyn-based KAWS (AKA Brian Donnelly) gained notoriety for “working over” advertisements and popular culture icons. Above you see “Companion,” a 16-foot sculpture that re-imagines (we’ll say) the classic Disney hallmark Mickey Mouse.

His work draws from pop culture, is scrawled on pop culture, and has become pop culture in so many ways. That’s why, I think, the iPhone was a perfect choice to capture the whole thing.

Granted, the pictures I took aren’t exactly world-class photography, but the app and device do exactly what KAWS has done with his career: it captures a moment and repurposes it into something uniquely different than the original, that can transcend boundaries of understanding, that can have a different meaning to each person but seems to having some meaning to everybody. That’s a hard thing to do.

Sounds like a bunch of dribble, right? Well, that’s art. As we’ve moved through Modernism, Post-Modernism, Post-Post-Post-Modernism and such, technology has shaped our understanding and interpretation of the world on a scale and pace never seen before. Maybe using an app and a cellphone to snap a shot of a sculpture isn’t as profound as I think it is, but to not think about it at all would be ignoring cultural momentum more than a century in the making.

The Office of Civil Rights, a division of the Department of Education, has been collecting CRDC information since 1968 to help identify gaps, disparities and trends in educational achievement and opportunities. The work was suspended in 2006 under then president George W. Bush, but was reinstated and expanded by Obama last year — collecting data for the first time on things like law enforcement referrals for students, for example.

“For the first time we have an incredible new source of data that tells us where opportunity gaps are in ways we’ve never seen before as a country,” Russlynn Ali, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education, said in a telephone briefing with reporters last week following the release of the first installment of the new CRDC data. “In recent years we have more data than ever before on identifying the achievement gap and where it exists.”

The New York Times has done some great reporting and analysis on national trends in discipline and opportunity gaps unearthed in the data. A few key points:

• Black students were more than three and a half times as likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers.
• More than 70 percent of students in school related arrests were black or Hispanic.
• Black and Hispanic students account for 44 percent of the students covered in the survey, but only account for 26 percent of students enrolled in gifted or talented programs.
• On average, teachers at high-minority schools were paid $2,251 less annually than their colleagues in other schools.

And while the disciplinary trends are probably the most dramatic, the CRDC also represents a huge repository of information on 72,000 schools in 7,000 districts around the nation, serving roughly 85 percent of the student population. You can drill down to individual districts and schools and see a pretty hefty profile of your area’s performance.

Looking at the data for the City of Atlanta, a number of the national trends seem to hold true. The percentage of black students suspended or expelled was high compared to the number in the school system, and black enrollment in gifted or talented programs was disproportionately low.

Still, I’ll admit, I have some of my own concerns over the accuracy of the data. For example, the student to teacher ratio (13:1) seems pretty low. When I was in school (not toooo terribly long ago) I never had a class below 20 kids — usually closer to 30 — so it’s kind of a hard number to relate to.

The average teacher salary of $94 thousand is similarly questionable. Maybe it’s the top brass bringing up the average? But with more than 3,000 teachers that would take a lot of top brass…

UPDATE: It’s important to consider what exacting was included and excluded in the data when drawing conclusions about average teacher salaries, especially between districts, Department of Education spokesperson David Thomas said in an e-mail. Looking at the six surrounding counties around the APS system, a large range of averages were reported:

• Atlanta – $94,058.90
• Cobb – $48,372.50
• DeKalb – $82,488.50
• Fulton (non-APS) – $38,759.80
• Gwinnett – $45, 680.30
• Clayton – $81,138.60
• Douglas – $125,846.00

“Many comparisons are possible with the CRDC school-level expenditure data, particularly within-district comparisons,” Thomas said in an e-mail. “However, data users must analyze the data between states and districts with caution due to variations in the district-selected inclusions and exclusions.”

In metro Atlanta, these inclusions and exclusions produce a seemingly high number for the APS system, while other districts (that included less in the reporting) have an average closer to what many would consider an accurate or reasonable level. Here’s a breakdown Thomas provided to help clarify.

The area of harassment and bullying reporting for the Atlanta system the data also seems incomplete. For example, 10 students are said to be disciplined for bully-related incidents, yet no incidents were reported in the data.

With a data set this huge I wouldn’t be too surprised if there was a few oversights or incomplete stats. Kudos for the IT guys over there for getting things together so nicely. The new database has only been live for about a week and a number of features, including the ability to easily track trends over the years of available data, are still in the works.

Check it out for yourself: http://ocrdata.ed.gov/

Without further adieu, here’s an infographic on Atlanta Public Schools statistics from the CRDC 2009 (updated March 20, 2012):

CL Eliminates Four Positions, Pay Reduced Companywide 5%

Ouch. I don’t care who you are, that stings. But to put it into a little more context, they just lost about a quarter of their newsroom… a full 25 percent. That’s huge!

That bring the tally of reporters and editors down to about a dozen. A dozen journalists to prop up and fill the content hole for one of the biggest circulating print publications in the state.

Presumably, the layoffs come with an uptick in CL’s freelance budget. Otherwise, I’m just not sure how they plan to fill the gap. Editor-in-Chief Eric Celeste said it this way:

There is no other way to put it: Losing these people as full-time employees is a blow to our company and our community, and they cannot be replaced. My great hope is that they will see fit to continue contributing to the paper and online as much as our freelance resources allow.

In a letter sent out to staff shortly before the layoffs were announced, top brass lamented the cuts were necessary to keep the company “on solid financial footing, allowing us to protect our organization against uncertainty—and therefore continue the important work we do.”

And well, hopefully it works this time. Creative Loafing and current parent company Chicago Reader are no stranger to the financial woes of the print industry. Various properties have fallen under the CL umbrella in one way or another through the years, with CL Atlanta being the first and longest running from what I can tell. Even when I was interning there back in 2007 there were sweeping changes to keep the publication afloat.

Long-time Editor-in-Chief Ken Edelstein (who I’d later work with at the Center for Sustainable Journalism) was let go in late 2008, shortly after 2 editorial staff layoffs in August.

John Sugg, another long-time CL writer who parted ways as a full-time staffer in 2007, spoke with the AJC about his take on what was happening back in 2008:

“The one thing that has remained stable at Creative Loafing Atlanta was Ken Edelstein’s leadership … even though he has gone through so many budget cuts. What’s been very clear is that corporate management has no concern for content,” said Sugg, who is a shareholder and still writes a weekly column. “As much as I disagree with what’s happening at Creative Loafing, it still makes me very sad to see it happen.”

I lay this out there just to help connect the dots a little. Personally, I wish the publication and all it’s current and former staffers the best of luck. I’d love to see the company gain it’s footing and continue to produce great content while offering an alternative to the mainstream press — although corporate ownership and cutbacks seems pretty mainstream these days.

Also, Atlanta Progressive News has a good round-up about the CL cuts and the recent acquisition of the Atlanta Daily World, if you’re looking for another read. Still, they don’t have the breath-taking Creative Loafing logo with scissors. That’s all mine.

In many ways these newer techs, apps, widgets and practices can add another dimension to your coverage. Folks say a photo is worth a thousand words. Fortunately, you no longer have to invest in thousands of dollars of equipment or lug around a 5lb. DSLR to cover the basics.

Here’s a few tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way. Hopefully they are helpful, but I’d love to see, hear, watch or read what you’ve been using and how it’s worked out.

Of course there are a ton of other options out there, depending on exactly what you’re working on. I picked these few because they have to potential to add value to pretty much any assignment with a minimal amount of effort.

Ironically, none of these services (with the exception of the Qik livestream) work on this WordPress.com site. It’s not any of the services or apps fault. WordPress.com just sucks. That’s about all there is to it.

1. Qik Video Pro – $1.99

available on: iPhone and hundreds of other devices

Dude, Qik really is quick. The app lets you do a number of cool things like, well, record video, apply effects, video chat and even zoom in and out WHILE you’re recording. But the the thing that makes it worth the $1.99 price tag is the ability to stream live video straight to the web.

A few months ago I wrote a step-by-step how-to on recording video using Qik, if you care to check it out, but all and all it’s kind of beyond simple for all the functionality the service offers.

After you get everything setup and ready to go, zip on over to your Qik user page and grab your ‘live channel’ snippet of code. Now you can embed your live video player on pretty much ANY website. Think breaking-news live feed on your front page.

Tip: You never know when you’ll need to hit record and get things to the web. Consider setting up a post or page with your ‘live channel’ code and saving it as a draft on the backend of your website. That way, it’s as simple as a click of ‘publish’ to start live-streaming breaking events.

Another cool feature, Qik uploads your video automatically after you’re finished recording. And if you’re not live the embedded player shows your most recent video. It’s worth noting, however, that it can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to upload your video once you stop live-streaming. It’s convenient it does this automatically, but BE AWARE before you try to stop and start recording in the thick of it.

Tip: If you plan to be recording anything over 30 seconds PLEASE invest in a tripod for your cellphone or mobile device. You can snag a stand for an iPhone on eBay for well less than $20, in some cases less than $5. DO IT! You’ll thank me later.

2. Panorama360 – $0.99

available on: iPhone and Android

This is my new toy, for journalism work and beyond, but I’ll be the first to tell you that it’s rather glitchy and tends to crash all the damn time. With that said, it’s actually so cool it’s worth the hassle.

The app does exactly what it says. Creates (seemless?) 360 degree views from you cellphone’s camera. You click, spin in a circle and viola, a panorama appears. The big thing is, as you’ll notice in my title photo, it’s kind of hard to get the ground and sky in there without the app wigging out and misprinting a thing or two – or completely crashing and deleting your dizzying work.

In defense of 360Panorama, however, I will say I have a rather old and beat-up iPhone 3gs which may compound the problems. The technology in and of itself is pretty amazing though. The brilliant minds over at Occipital, the company that produced the app, have developed a program that uses pieces of image recognition technology (from what I can gather) to help stitch together your panoramas.

The coolest feature has to be the interactive, 360 degree interface. It’s tweetable, sharable and even embeddable, so what’s not to like?

Tip: Play with this bad boy for a few days before rushing out into the field. If you’re in a tight spot and only have one shot at grabbing the moment aire on the side of caution. Go for a simple, less robust shot so you don’t overload the app and loss the whole scene. In fact, if it’s a one shot situation don’t even you the damn thing. 

Pro-ish Tip: There are other options out there, of course. For about $80 you can buy an actual 360 degree lens to stick on your iPhone. The Dot app/attachment put out by Kogeto comes with a similar 360 interface. The best part though? You can record video and sound. After uploading, the viewer can spin around in the scene while the video plays. Pretty awesome, but for $80 it kind of has to be.

3. Twitter – FREE

available on: any phone via SMS or app

Yes, I actually put Twitter on the list. Pretty much everyone gets the idea of live-tweeting an event, but few do it in an effective way that works beyond the Twitter stream.

Download the Twitter app or setup your phone to tweet via SMS. Next, grab one of Twitter’s nifty widgets and embed it on your website, in a post, page or whatever fits the bill. Presto! Now you’ve got a nice sidebar, running story that’ll garner some page views and a thread of ongoing updates even after the event.

I would paste an example in this post, but my WordPress.com cheapness won’t allow it. The code should work with any self-hosted site, however, and the company even gives an option to post straight to Blogger. Still, no WordPress.com love.

Tip: Create a hashtag for whatever event your covering and use the corresponding search widget. This helps keep the embedded feed on your site on topic and free of your other, non-related tweets. Plus, other people can chime in and add to the conversation. It’s a win-win.

The twits at Twitter even allow you to change color schemes, size, number of tweets shown and other tidbits to help out with branding and site consistency. You pick and choose, then click ‘grab code.’ Three cheers for simplicity.

I’ve got to admit, I was really impressed. Anybody that can take a hunk of metal – or any material, for that matter – and turn it into something functional, elegant and unique earns my respect right off the bat.

And the January meet up of the Alex Bealer Blacksmith Association (ABBA) in Atlanta, Ga. was full of people exactly like that. The ABBA is a non-profit based in Atlanta who’s goal is to “increase the knowledge and appreciation of the Craft of Blacksmithing, promote the study of its many technologies, and to continue it as an active Craft.” Full disclosure here, my step-dad Kevin Daniell has been a member for a number of years.

Each month, they meet and work on a project, or “challenge.” For january, the challenge was a pair of shutter locks (something like this). And each month there’s a different host.

The January host was notable sculpter and metal worker Andrew T. Crawford of Atlanta. At his workshop in West Midtown, Andrew employs 4 full-time metalworkers, churning out everything from light fixtures to gates to works of art. In many respects, he blurs the line between art and functionality.

Even with the family connection, it’s sad to say, this was the first meet-up I’d ever made. One thing’s for sure, though. I can’t wait to catch the next one.

The best part? It’s free and open to the public.

Check out all the photos of the blacksmithing meet-up, if you’d like. Here’s some of my favorites:

More photos at: http://www.claydudaphotography.com/Hobbies/Alex-Bealer-Jan-2012/

It depends on how you measure it, but I think I failed my 2011 New Year’s Resolution. It was, if you recall, to Love Thy Blog. I promised to blog regularly, weekly even, but if you check the record you’ll see I only managed a meager 17 posts last year.

Still, it’s all about perspective. My site traffic increased nearly 10 fold. Not too shabby for monthly content of varying degrees of interest and importance. Not surprisingly, most of my traffic came from the U.S., but it’s interesting too see how many outsiders – mainly the Canadians and the Brits – took a gander at my humble assortment of syllables.

Feel free to check out WordPress’s wrap-up of my 2011 stats, if you care or dare.

Of course, the blame only rests on my shoulders. My first mistake was having a resolution at all. Nobody ever sticks to them. I was doomed to fail. Still, a huge contributing factor is that I constantly write journalism-focused posts for the Center for Sustainable Journalism. After 40 hours each week pouring over the latest theories about the future of the media I find myself a little burnt out…

This year I’ve warded off any inkling of a resolution. One thing is for sure, though. This blog is going to take on a bit of a new direction. What that is exactly I’m still not sure, but I won’t be spouting off about the media near as much. There’s already a ton of assholes way more prolific than myself taking up the task.

Besides, in this day and age we’re all part of the media.

Having a bit of fun with the dog and thought I’d share. That’s about all there is to it.

Ode to the broken New Year’s resolution, which (if I recall correctly) was for me to ‘love thy blog.’

But, perhaps, the hipsters of the web can offer a bit of redemption. For the true hipster would not settle on an app that merely mimics old photographic methods. Nay. They would seek out the vintage products on eBay and the like, piece together the necessary dust-covered, antiquated optics and shill out mommy and daddy’s hard earned money to have it processed over at E-6 on the westside of town.

Fortunate for me and my busy schedule, I’m not hip enough to be a hipster. Rather I’ll provide fuel to the fire and offer up a rather simplistic – yet helpful for the task ahead – infographic.

Lastly, it’s worth noting this is a rip-off from the brillant blogger minds over at 1000memories, and to a lesser extent the KEH Camera Blog where I originally stumbled the piece. At any rate, give credit where credit is do and enjoy the visual.