Today’s Father’s Day with comments, as well as some old Dad moments over the years :

Fathers Day 2009

They made breakfast and then cleaned the kitchen for Father's Day. Wonderful!

Sarah Kate's Windchime she made last week at Pottery Class

Abby's Windchime she made at Pottery Class last week.

The girls made coupons I can redeem for random housework, hugs, and kisses

Sarah Kate made me a bracelet with a cool little bead.

They made me a book I can write down songs in that we can all play together.

They gave me a Certificate of Appreciation for Father's Day

The bracelet and other items came in these handmade boxes. How cute!

Anagrams are fun. I made this about 10 years ago and just found it on an old backup drive while doing some spring cleaning.

These are the panels I am planning to attend. Anyone wanna meet up and go together?

Wednesday

• 2pm
  Music Panel: “Tuning into Songwriting”
  We kick off HATCHfest Music with our groundbreaker and mentor songwriters joining together to interact with young HATCHfest attendees to share their stories and lessons learned while pursuing a creative profession.
• 4pm
  Design & Technology Panel: “Is Innovation dead?”
  Innovation has become the catch word for the 21st century. But what exactly is innovation, really? Our panel of HATCH mentors who represent a diverse range of perspectives will explore the very nature of how we innovate and why innovation is important. Hear what NASA industrial designer Evan Twyford, toy inventor Joe Wilcox, interaction designer Manuel Lima and video artists Scott Pagano and Robb Pope have to say about what makes an organization or a process “Innovative.” Find out how we can be more creative, and how play leads to innovation.

Thursday

• 11am
  Cross-Discipline Panel and Discussion: Marketing for the Creative Professional
  This will be a panel event, comprised of local professionals that will be available to field your questions on understanding and mastering the power of the media in promoting your art business.
• 1pm
  Music Panel: “The New Music Curators”
  The art of music discovery is drastically changing. Traditional gatekeepers like radio, Rolling Stone and MTV are losing their significance, and consumers are lost in a diverse landscape of fragmented and unending media choices. Thursday’s Music Panel at the Innovator’s Lounge explores the increasing importance of curation in music. You are invited to listen to our esteemed group of mentors who will share their experiences in how musicians will be discovered in the new paradigm. The panel consists of Ashley Capps (founder of Bonnaroo Music Festival), Sean Moeller (founder / producer of the Daytrotter blog) and Nate Douglas (Chief Curation Officer for Paste Magazine).

Friday

• 11am
  Journalism Panel: “The New Media Landscape: Challenges and Possibilities”
  The Journalism discipline’s panel, on Friday, April 17, will welcome the public to a fast-paced, in-depth discussion of “The New Media Landscape: Challenges and Possibilities.” Our panel of veteran professionals from print and broadcast to online media, moderated by Journalism discipline coordinator Jon Elliston (see bio below), will share perspectives and ideas on the sea of changes in mass communication, from the decline of print media to the rise of the Web and other multimedia platforms. Underlying the discussion will be ways to survive and thrive as journalists amidst the information revolution, and new opportunities for collaborating with citizen journalists.
• 3pm
  Design & Technology Panel: “HATCHfest Mentors Discuss the Creative Process”
  The creative process is a noble beast. Some days ideas bubble up fully formed and other times nothing seems to work. Our panelists give a candid perspective on their own challengest and triumphs as creative professionals and how they make their art.

Saturday

• 11am
  Design & Technology Keynote: Manuel Lima
  Network Visualization in the age of infinite interconnectedness
  VisualComplexity.com (VC) is a unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks. With over 600 projects, the goal is to glean a critical understanding of different visualization methods, across a series of disciplines, as diverse as Biology, Social Networks or the World Wide Web. This talk will leverage the existing pool of knowledge from VC to convey a current portrait of network visualization. It will illustrate some of its current trends and representation methods, and explore the reasons behind the recent outburst of interest in the field, while focusing on the key challenges of mapping complex networks.

The girls and I had a ton of fun at this circus last night. For those of you who would like to check it out, there is another show today. Check it: Runaway Circus – Asheville

Sarah Kate’s reaction at the show

Local Asheville artist and fellow geek Wylie Fisher wanted to get a bunch of his art up on walls. I managed to get a couple paintings in trade for beer. What a deal! The girls and I hung them up this morning.

Yes it’s true. Asheville is having a Twestival.

While the name may be weird and perhaps a little contrived, do not miss the importance of what the Twestival proves in the age of Web 2.0.

Basically a week or so a go a bunch of people on Twitter (a micro-blogging service and communication protocol) had an idea that put “social media” and “Web 2.0″ – two of the biggest buzzwords in the Internet – to the test.

Until now, people send Tweets (a message posted to Twitter is called a “tweet”) about random stuff, and that will probably never go away. It has also been a novelty to send Tweets from cel phones and other random devices. But Twestival answered an important question:

Can we actually manifest positive change using  just social media tools?

The answer has been a resounding YES. Beer sponsors, bands, videographers, photographers, graphic designers, web developers, bloggers, marketers, caterers and tons of other skilled local people came together for a cause – pure drinking water for third world countries. When something was needed, or a skill was needed, a “Tweet” was sent out requesting expertise or materials.

Social media at work friends.

When is the Twestival?

In these short two weeks there have already been several small runups to the main festival which takes place Thursday, February 12 at Windows on the Park from 6pm – 11. For a $10 donation you get food, $1 beers, music, as well as a silent auction

Now, when people ask you, “Why do I need to be on Twitter? I don’t get it.” or, “What is web 2.0 exactly?” you can point them to Asheville’s own manifestation of a “Twestival”. Let them know how these new communication mediums are making great things happen right here in Asheville.

More info and directions:

http://asheville.twestival.com/

Some random pictures of me and the girls and their first time ice skating:

Sarah Kate and Abby got straight A’s on their report cards (yes I’m bragging) and we made a trip to the book store as a reward. After that we went to the park with Jose and family. He took some really great pics and the girls totally fell in love with their daughter: