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Lake Ridge to Baxter trail connection

bu — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:05:18 +0000

In an effort to make this happen, I went eploring the area along the powerlines off of Solandara Way, as a possible connection to the Baxter trails. It looks deceptively easy in the satellite photos, but the vegetation is extreme and it’s pretty hilly. Still, it’s doable… possibly, maybe…

Here are some panoramic photos of the area (click to view larger) (for super-size, right click and open in new window):

Here, I’m standing in an empty lot on Solandara Way, which is seen continuing on the right. Baxter village is down the powerlines to the left.

This is about a block further in. Rosemary Ln is behind me, to my right. Baxter village is down the powerlines to the left.

Fearing snakes and other unknown creepies, I didn’t venture further. I crossed under the powerlines, and here is the view from the opposite direction. Verbena Ct is behind me, Baxter village is down the powerlines to the right.

More Tega Cay Trails photos and stuff:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tegacaytrails
http://bit.ly/tegacaytrails

Barcamp Charlotte 2: the unconference strikes back

bu — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:18:09 +0000

Another great Barcamp was held in Charlotte this weekend, and like the first, it was a fun, creative, and inspiring day full of user-generated sessions on a variety of topics, from balloon twisting to iPhone app development. Area 15 hosted the event again, and the diverse space was great for hosting the variety of topics and conversations that took place.

My day consisted of How to Ruin Your Small Business on Twitter with Lyell Peterson (@93octane), Twittercasting with Nathan Richie (@NathanRichie), going down the creativity rabbithole with Jared Nicolson, HTML5 Preview with Adam Hunter, and The Future of Journalism with Andria Krewson, Desiree Kane, and Austin Light.

I hope to write some followups, as I continue to process all the great info that was shared, but in the mean time, here is a roundup of BarcampCLT-related media I’ve seen so far:

Search “BarcampCLT” on Twitter

Pre-event

BarCamp Charlotte 2 Pre-party by James Willamor/CLT Blog
A Moment by Summer Plum

Session materials

Manage Your Social Networks – session slides (plus links) by dizzySEO
HTML 5 Examples by Adam Hunter
How To Get The Other 9 Listings on Google video of Robert Enriquez by David Wells

Post-event

Barcamp 2 is in the bag and you made it great! by Barcamp Charlotte
First photos of BarCamp Charlotte 2 by James Willamor/CLT Blog
BarCampCLT 2 photos by Cara Couture
Alphatracks Visits Bar Camp Charlotte 2 photos by Tom Bonner
BarCampCLT2 photos by Tom Bonner
Lyell Talks Serious Twitter Business photo by Summer Plum
Get a little weirder, Charlotte by Jeff Elder
A Smarter Charlotte by Eric Orozco
Charlotte BarCamp – What did you think? by Corey Creed
Barcamp Charlotte SEO Session with NC_SEO by David Wells
barcampCLT 2 by Mr. R
Overheard in Charlotte: BarCamp Edition by Meck
Technology, Media “Unconference” Draws More Than 100 To Area 15 by Andria Krewson

If you know of anything I’m missing, please let us know in the comments!

Happy trails to you

bu — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:09:14 +0000

Tega Cay Parks & Recreation sent an email Tuesday announcing a new committee to design and build trails in Tega Cay. (Yay!)

I will be taking an active part in getting this group up & running, and have developed this slideshow to help sell the idea of Tega Cay Trails. (In typical fashion, I’ve also gone overboard and set up a Twitter account and a Flickr account to spread the love further still.

Please follow, link, promote, and/or join, as appropriate. ;)

BotcampCLT

bu — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:57:50 +0000

For a second there, I thought I saw a bunch of bots at Barcamp, but then I realized I was mistaken. But, I must say there were some people that looked really similar to:

@39octane, @annoyabrah, @bemnarvin, @brahdesigns, @cristaldempsey, @Itsnotem, @JaredWwwOs, @JedFelder, @onanything, @s1paulds, @smallfleet, and @twinkhanson.

Torgny claims to have spotted the only real bot to show up at Barcamp: http://twitpic.com/lxo6i #NSFW #SHD

User Experience, Usability, and SEO

bu — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 03:11:47 +0000

I spoke at the Charlotte SEO Meetup this evening, which was held at the Charlotte Chamber building Uptown. Thanks to everyone for coming out. Check out the discussion on Twitter at #SEMCLT. Below is the presentation, with a few slight tweaks. It’s a high-level overview, but there are links to some detailed further reading on most topics.

Charlotte UX August meeting recap

bu — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:31:01 +0000

After a summer hiatus for the month of July, the Charlotte UX group convened for lunch this past Wednesday at Principle Solutions on Tryon St. They provided lunch from Jason’s Deli, and a posh conference room. We went around the table and did introductions consisting of our titles and roles, for the benefit of the staffing folks, and got down to business. The topic for the month was start pages, and we took a look at Yahoo (which recently redesigned), iGoogle, Netvibes, Pageflakes, and Popurls. We examined interaction patterns and compared interfaces, explored the way different sites allow you to customize your content, and weighed in on what we liked to have on our personal start pages.

As far as group news and general info, it sounds like the Charlotte UX community on Ning may become our central spot on the web for discussion and event info. The Facebook group will remain, as an additional place to interact, and the current Charlotte-UX.org might be redirected to the Ning site.

For those who have recently inquired:

The Charlotte UX group (formerly IA Cocktail) is a group of professionals (students and other interested parties are welcome as well) in the Charlotte, NC area specializing in User Experience. The group holds regular meetings and events to share information of mutual interest and provide networking opportunities. Members have expertise in Interaction Design, Usability Engineering, Graphic Design, and Information Architecture.

We hope you’ll join us at our next event.

Charlotte UX June meeting recap

bu — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:26:39 +0000

The Charlotte UX group met yesterday at Modis, Uptown. Good turnout, pizza, and conversation. I dropped some Pecha Kucha knowledge, and hopefully generated some interest for PK Night vol 4 in August. Greg Corrin talked about Google Wave and let us play with the Android phone from the Google I/O developer conference.

Twitterers in attendance: I met @wwwmarty IRL for the 1st time, saw my coworker @shelkster, saw @inkblurt, @gcorrin, and watched @jorah knitting some funky wool socks.

In other Charlotte UX news, we’ve officially abandoned Evite for event administration and, for now, that is handled at charlotte-ux.org. We’re also trying out a Ning site, so if you want to check that out, post something in the comments (it’s invite-only for now).

Tonight: Pecha Kucha Night Charlotte v3

bu — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:18:07 +0000

It’s actually in Rock Hill this time around, but… close enough.
I’m going to be presenting “The Incredible Shrinking Media”, which I’ll post on cultivatecreativity.com tonight for your enjoyment. (It’ll also show up in my lil’ Slideshare widget over there –>

Pecha Kucha Night Charlotte vol 3: date & location confirmed

bu — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:42:33 +0000

PKN Charlotte – Volume 3

Date: Thursday April 2nd
When: Starting at 7:30pm
Where: Tom S. Gettys Art Center
201 E Main Street, Rock Hill, SC 29730
Cover Charge $5.

Want to present? Submission deadline is March 15th.
See the Pecha Kucha Night Charlotte site for all the details.

BarCampCLT roundup

bu — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:41:56 +0000

Collected lots of pics and follow-up posts from this past weekend’s BarCamp in Charlotte. I’ll post a cleaned up version on cultivate creativity this weekend. If you know of more, post up in the comments. Also, let me know if you’d like to be credited differently than what I’ve done here…

Photos

A bunch of photos are up on Flickr. Here’s a quick link to everything tagged “BarCampCLT”
More specifically, here are contributions from Andy Ciordia, Wayne Sutton, David Zimm, Lisa Hoffmann, Brian Cary, Matt Tyndall, Gregor Smith, Brian and Cara, Neil Cowley, and James Willamore. Taking the road less Flickred are pics from Carolina Nightlife and Alphatracks. We’ve got pre-party photos from Matt Tyndall and James Willamore, and James also has a cool set of the CLT Blog crew.

Video

CLT Blog streamed video live from the event, and has a couple segments still looping.
Justin Ruckman talks about Charlotte’s first Barcamp by Wayne Sutton
BarCampCLT – Videos (OLPC and The Future of Journalism sessions) by LifeTech101
Meeting of the Minds in Charlotte! New Wave by StormanNorman

Blog posts

Reflections on BarCampCLT (1-24-09) by Mr R.
BarCampCLT: Signs of Creative Life in the Queen City? by Steve Knight
A Remote Organizer by Phillip Dodds
BarCampCLT Meets Filmblazer by Jamie of Filmblazer
How to Make Money Online by Corey Creed
Shooting BarCamp Charlotte with a M42 lens on the A350 by Alphatracks