Mi Verano Del Sol

A view from Loki Cusco. Photo courtesy of Loki Cusco.


After spending a lot of time researching places to go on spring break I came across a nice group of hostels throughout Peru called Loki Hostels. While it will most likely not work for spring break I have decided to see if I can get a job there for the entire summer. The pay may not be the greatest but I will have room and board and an opportunity to meet new people from around the world as well as really take some time to find out who I am. I have asked a friend to go along as well and he seems to be excited. Only a 4 day hike to the incredible Inca ruins of Machu Picchu, Loki Cusco is the main hostel I want to enjoy. I have heard that watching the sun rise over Macchu Piccu is one of the most incredible sights and feelings in the world and I want to experience that. White water rafting, bungy jumping, Amazon excursions, Lake Titicacca, Iquito and one of my favorite foods: ceviche! While none of this is set in stone I would like to do that as soon as I possibly can so that I have no way to get out of it. If I don't do it now, when will I?

For more information about Loki Hostels check out their website here.

Wisconsin Flooding '08

Just getting around to clearing off the SD card. Last summer southern Wisconsin had some major flooding. We decided to take a day trip and explore. Some of these pictures are incredible. The one above is one of my favorites. The rest can be found in my Picasa web album. Check it out. Feel free to use them for what you please, I just ask for you to credit Brock Cummings. Thanks.

Winter Run

A great day for a run. Here are some of the photos I took along the way. The SD card happened to be almost full though so I could only take a few. Not much wildlife today, but the sunshine and nature more than made up for it. Enjoy. The rest of the photos can be found in my Picasa album.

Fran Hamerstrom Project

Photo courtesy: Paul J. Gaylor

Today is the beginning of a new, long-term project of mine. Far too frequently when people ask me where I come from and I tell them "Plainfield, Wisconsin," their response immediately shoots to one name: Ed Gein. A mentally disturbed murderer who did all types of inhuman acts. It is depressing to be known for such a mar in our history when Plainfield was the home of one of the most incredible people to walk this earth. Frances Hamerstrom was a woman of great tenacity and even greater heart. A wealthy Bostonian-turned-humble central Wisconsin conservationist, Fran was known by many and loved by those who had that pleasure. I am starting my research on Mrs. Hamerstrom by reading books from the Plainfield Public Library that she wrote. The two that I chose to begin with are "Is She Coming Too?" and "My Double Life," both memoirs of Fran's life. I encourage anyone who can get their hands on any of Fran's books to read them. In high school we read "A Sand County Almanac," by Aldo Leopold, another famous Wisconsn conservationist.While I found it to be less than thrilling on my first read, I may crack the spine again and give it another shot. In the future I think that the local school district where I went to school from kindergarten through 12th grade, Tri-County, would be wise to assign some of Fran's books to read. It is not often that such a delightful writer comes from our local area. I regret that I never had the chance to meet with Fran, but I hope to get to know her through her stories, and eventually I hope to meet with her children and get first-hand accounts of the woman Fran was. Her home is still standing and still occupied and being that I know the current occupant I also hope to get some pictures of the old homestead for my loyal readers to marvel at. A 20th century frontierswoman, loving mother and wife and above all lover of nature, when I tell people that I come from Plainfield I want them to say, "Oh, yes -- Fran Hamerstrom..." Her spirit is still very much alive in the minds of those who knew her and in the trees where she spent so much time.


Ed. Note: I am currently working to get permission to use Fran's picture on my website, if all goes well I will update this post with a picture of her.

As the end of February nears, our eyes, minds and hearts look forward to that time of year when everything comes out to enjoy the nice weather...Spring Break. I have never taken a spring break trip while I have been at UW, but this year we are looking to take a roadtrip somewhere. Out west, down to a beach, it doesn't really matter the destination its the road that we are looking for. After watching the film "Into the Wild" I have been inspired to go off and just let the car take me where it will. No destination, just driving. As a side note this summer I am now interested in doing something out west in the parks system. I would love to work in the Rockys for a summer, I imagine it is pretty incredible. If anyone has any recommendations please let me know and I will look into them. 2:08 a.m. Friday, February 20, 2009. And just starting to really live life. Here we go.

Update: Now I may have a chance to work in Peru in the Andes. Yay for mountains.

Earth Hour

I encourage everyone to take a bit of time out of their electricity-intensive day to just turn off the lights and appliances. Use battery power on your laptop. This is one of the easiest things you can do and it will help on the power bill too.

Earth Hour Website - Check it out

So I interned at a newspaper near my hometown this summer, The Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune. I became fast friends with most of my co-workers there. I didn't fetch coffee, I didn't do any type of typical, horror-story intern work. I was out on the street learning first hand how to report on anything and everything. It has been invaluable to me. Enough with the praise, my editor when I was there is no longer with the Trib, but he is working for a philanthropy-based online news service. I encourage you to check it out if you live in central Wisconsin, I am sure it will be worthwhile as Jeff is as excited as I am for the future of our medium. You can find him here: Community News 2.0. Here is a classy pic of him, looking to break the next big news story.

da Silva: Magazines aren't going anywhere, but...

A magazine editor visiting the University of Wisconsin says the quality production values of magazines will ultimately be what saves them from their economic woes.

Wilson da Silva, Editor-in-Chief of the Australia-based science magazine Cosmos, readily acknowledged that print media faces some challenges, but that he supports magazines as “low-cost high tech.” What he means by that term is that the cost of printing the magazines is easily offset by the quality of content and production values that magazines offer readers including high-resolution photographs and quality features that are more enjoyable offline. He even went as far as to say that magazines, as a form of quality distribution, is an inevitable creation.

“If magazines didn't exist,” da Silva said, “we would have to invent them, I would argue.”

Da Silva says that the economic problems that newspapers and weekly magazines like Time and Newsweek are facing are difficult issues to pin down. Cosmos is a bi-monthly magazine and according to da Silva most subscribers subscribe for two years at a time and only 8-10 percent of the magazines revenue comes from advertisers, where weeklies have more content and more magazines per year and thus must rely more on advertising.

Print, web, or cellphone — the medium doesn't matter as much as the idea that news and advertising are “decoupling,” says da Silva. Advertisers are leaving print, but not following through to the Web, and in that process news disseminators are left with a large bill to pay. Magazines, with their unique attributes and unmatched quality, will survive precisely because of those attributes and quality. Subscribers would be more willing to pay more to support a magazine that is worth their time — if it is not worth their time then why should it be worth their money?

Cosmos is an example of a multi-revenue supported magazine that can serve as a blueprint for other magazines, says da Silva. Whether or not that model can work for all kinds of magazines, like weeklies or bi-weeklies, is still not determined, but publishers and journalists have to be willing to listen to what their audience wants. That is what he and his colleagues at Cosmos do.

“We have a saying in the office,” da Silva said, “We don't do worthy, we do interesting.”

Wilson da Silva speaking with students

Ed. Note: The Blackberry Curve has pretty poor resolution. I will try to find something that I can use to post mobile photos that are of a better quality. Mr. da Silva is in the blue shirt on the left.

da Silva end

Lecture is complete. I will post an article about the discussion later this evening after I gather my notes and my thoughts. I am still deciding on the angle that I want to take with this story but a bit of time away from the subject matter and I will figure it out.

Moving? Before the lecture?

Well, I did not anticipate my first break being before the lecture even began, but so far, though I caught a glimpse of our mysterious speaker, he is currently nowhere to be found. It gives me a good chance to rail about preparedness, something that I often have issues with. We are now being moved to a new room two floors down. I hope that this is a lecture that is worth the commotion because at the moment it seems to be a touch annoying.

Wilson da Silva Lecture Prep

The da Silva lecture begins at 4 p.m. at which time I will be "twittering" or "tweeting" or whatever one chooses to call twitter posts. If there are any breaks I will likely update the blog directly and I will try to get another update on the web tonight after the lecture hopefully discussing interesting ideas that da Silva has as well as analyzing the lecture through my eyes.

Wilson da Silva biografía en español.

As I am preparing for the da Silva lecture I thought I would practice a little bit of my Spanish and write a short biography en español. If anyone is able to assist me in my Spanish I would appreciate it. The following biography has been taken from the website of Cosmos Magazine. I then translated it using a Spanish textbook and a Spanish-English Dictionary.

Wilson da Silva es director de Cosmos, una revista de divulgación científica características con sede en Australia.

Un antiguo corresponsal extranjero para Reuters, que ha estado en el aire un reportero / productor para el programa de ciencia cuántica de televisión ABC de Australia, un correspodent de Londres para la revista New Scientist, un periodista del personal de la edad y The Sydney Morning Herald, los periódicos, editor de la ciencia de ABC en línea, y él es un ex jefe de redacción de las revistas de Newton, 21C y Ciencia Spectra.

El ganador de 17 premios de periodismo y el cine, también ha escrito y producido dos documentales premiados, entre ellos el diplomático.

Actualmente presidente de la Federación Mundial de Periodistas Científicos, es un ex presidente de la Comisión Australiana de Ciencia y Comunicadores de la Sociedad Museo Australiano, y ha servido en la junta directiva de la Sociedad de Autores de Australia.

Me. Testing mobile posts and pics

This is a pic of me from the bb
Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel

Aliens of Earth? well...

I've been saying for some time that it was absurd to expect all life to follow our evolutionary path.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7893414.stm?lss

An inspiration. Learn about the rest of the world...

This is the HD version so it will take some time to load. Be patient. It is worth it.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Numero Uno. LW's first post.

The first post of Lifetime Wanderings. An achievement in its own right. I have recently been questioning a lot of ideas that we as society cherish. Social attitudes and desires like money, material goods, fame or infamy are each a piece of society that I question. What do they mean? Why are we so preoccupied with them? Those questions will be part of this blog from now on. I also will post random things about music, literature, television/film and a host of other topics. Journalism and the Web's impact on it will also be a recurring topic as I am studying to be a journalist at the University of Wisconsin. A big shout out to Jeff, Deb, Katy, Brian, Blake, and many others who have inspired me to create something worth reading. Your guidance is something I will continue to value throughout my career and and throughout my life.