Just checking in while on vacation here in sunny San Diego. Came without PLSS (he had to work). While my son is at tennis camp I’m doing some volunteer work at UCSD branch of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2 – http://www.calit2.net/index.php) where the students and faculty do really cool things. If you are into visualization I’d just like to say, in true vacation postcard fashion, “Wish you were here” because take a gander at what the professors and students here are referring to as HIPerSpace (http://calit2.net/newsroom/article.php?id=1332).
My own volunteer work is a little less bleeding edge. I’m busy writing a white paper for the staff at the Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture, and Archaelogy (http://cisa3.calit2.net/) on the not quite as fascinating, but important topic of “Museums, Collections Management (Information) Systems, Cataloguing, and Standards in North America” to inform CISA3′s Digital Clinical Chart Project (http://cisa3.calit2.net/research/dcc.php) with the San Diego Museum of Art.
Maurizio Seracini and I first proposed the Digital Clinical Chart project to the San Diego Museum of Art (http://www.sdmart.org/index.asp) in the late 1990s, when I was a curator there. We never quite got off the ground, despite my hopeful presentation of this early version of the project in 1997 at Museums & the Web in D.C. (http://www.archimuse.com/ichim99/abstracts/prg_30000009.html).
Fast forward to 2008 — Derrick R. Cartwright, the Director of the San Diego Museum of Art has teamed up with Maurizio Seracini, who is now the director of CISA3 and the project is up and running. Both Maurizio and Derrick have been kind enough to include me in the progress of the project–hence my volunteer work this summer. I’m excited to see this project finally being realized and with tools and technologies we only dreamed of in the 1990s.
In the meantime, I have been doing some actual vacationing and last night Nick and I had dinner with two of our favorite people–Becca and Chacho (you know who you are). As Nick said on the ride back to the house, “Having dinner with Chacho and Becca is better than a show. I can’t get a word in edgewise because I’m laughing so hard all the time.”
I cannot recreate the ambience of outdoor dining. Imagine us in Del Mar, over-looking the Pacific Ocean, with wine in hand. Becca began to tell us about a random comment she made to her supvervisor. He had asked her if she wanted to sit in on an interview for a new employee and she countered with, “Not unless you want me to see if the candidate has any psychic monkeys on her back.” Becca said she didn’t know where she came up with the idea on the spur of the moment, but thought it would be a good idea if you could see peoples’ “psychic monkeys.” It would save a lot of trouble down the road. We all agreed and this morning, first thing, I did a psearch on the term psychic monkey and this is what I found. Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIKJhmScrAw
