New Place, Sunset
the waste-paper basket
crumple it up and start again
The Other Side
HealthyCal.org
June 6, 2011
This is the final video in our three part series. See parts one and two.
“Have you seen ‘Charlie Bit My Finger?’” Trelena Thomas asked through a tempered laugh when HealthyCal.org met up with her to film the final piece in our three-part series on the family. Since carrying her San Diego Broadband Initiative computer through the door of her Mid-City apartment a week ago, family time has come to include YouTube favorites. But what’s more, Thomas has connected to services and groups that promise to improve her family’s quality of life–her middle daughter has already climbed half a reading level thanks to an online reading program.
Equalizers like this are what inform efforts aimed at closing the digital divide. According to the Pew Research Center, 40 percent of households with an income less than $30,000 have home access to information on the Web, compared to nearly 90 percent of those making $75,000 or more. The median household income in Thomas’s neighborhood is less that $24,000, according to a San Diego planning agency.
Spring Cleaning: Delightfully Moody
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This is the last of this Spring Cleaning series, as my office is as good as packed up. I now wake up each morning and commute by slippers over to the next room for my latest gig, written up in the San Diego Union-Tribune here.
Sources linked if I have ‘em
Bridging the Divide
HealthyCal.org
May 16, 2011
This is the follow-up to the Modern Divide video I produced with Robert Knauf.
Just three weeks ago, Trelena Thomas was learning the computer basics—the difference between right and left mouse clicks and what a URL is. Now, in the second installment of our three part series, watch as Thomas and her daughters bridge the digital divide with their first home computer, a former County of San Diego desktop refurbished by the San Diego Futures Foundation. Now come the bigger questions: who gets to play games first and is Facebook allowed?
Part 3 is on its way!
Spring Cleaning: Wash-out
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Sources linked if I’ve got ‘em
Cutes and Fuzzies
Have you seen this yet? My heart is a puddle on the floor.
Why hello there, perfectly priced reproduction chairs
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For such an emphasis on simple materials, this whole vintage industrial, machine age furniture trend is pricey. Some tin and a little wood for half a grand? I knew it was only a matter of time before the almost-box stores caught on and brought one of my favorite trends to a more manageable price. These pretties are less than $90 right now at Cost Plus. That’s more affordable than Urban Outfitters and close to Ikea pricing.
If you’re from San Diego, Rusty Gold Design is really reasonable for stools. And throw a search for Mission Valley into Craigslist. There’s seems to be a guy down there who’s been cleaning out a factory for a few months.
More tips on finding industrial furniture on the cheap here.
What You're Reading
I’ve been in love with the written word since I sat down and tried to write a novel at age eight. I won’t claim to have been a child prodigy—it was a rip-off of Black Beauty and I stopped after the first page. I will claim, however, to have become a wordsmith of sorts in the meantime: from yearbook nerd, to journalist, to scholar.
To twentysomething just trying to make it work. Here, you'll find scribbles and musings, work and self-indulgence—all the stuff littering the bottom of the waste-paper basket that might just get me past the first page.
Contact me at burksmegan [at] yahoo [dot] com
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What I’m Tweeting
- I've gotta say, live-tweeting an event focused so much on public safety got way more nerve-wracking this week. #Austin #CHD9Youth 6 days ago
- @GrantBarrett When we went the adobe was open to explore. It has a room with caged snakes. Lots of fun for a four-year-old! 10 months ago
- @GrantBarrett Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve. It's easy and u can tailor the length. Has an historic adobe + waterfall. bit.ly/rkp9q7 10 months ago
- Hiked 3 Sisters Sun. Becoming new Cedar Creek Falls. Tons of families w/grandma, w/out H2O. Buzz for these hikes never mention difficulty. 10 months ago
- @SDuncovered I saw JAG4MD when I was working at a hospital. Still trying to figure out how to fit "hooptie for writer" on mine. 11 months ago
