Hello. I have not written much recently. Life has been like living in a wind tunnel while holding my baggage since returning from Sweden. Today, I just returned from the Las Vegas Speedway and drag Strip. My grandmother of 101.5 passed away this weekend, and I am on my way to Chicago to spend time with family. I will return Friday afternoon.

Maybe Dave and/or the students, Tommy, Lennart, or anyone else would like to explain the past weekend in Las Vegas, I will post it here.

From Dave Meigide:

“For all who would like to see Joe Urbz's photos of what we did this weekend, follow the link below to Joe's gallery of the Rim High Race team competing at the PSCA Las Vegas Nationals!  This event's crew was made up of the auto students involved in the Sweden Exchange Project '09.

Tommy finished his day within the trophy class, in the semi-finals (#3 overall) !  I was able to make it to the quarter-finals in the bracket one class, largely because we had an awesome team, with very professional crew members!  Very nice work Joe!  Thanks also to Jim Mikkelson for helping us with logistics of getting the two cars (and equipment) to Nevada and back!”

--Dave


Nonetheless, I posted a major gallery (no picture comments though due to time constraints), so here it is.

I will post something next weekend. So stay tuned!

Tags: PSCA

The blur of life is almost over, and all of us are feeling it. We have done SO much over the past number of days, it would take me quite of bit of time to cover it all. We visited the Moose Garden, places to take panoramic photos, bowling, lunches, dinners, fika, and other greats places. The weather has been bi-polar: one day where is it was just glorious, and the next day was a snowstorm. LOL. We are treated with such generosity and hospitality, that the English version of “Thank you” is not enough.

I have a couple of tidbits here. First of all, Congratulations to the RHS ROP Outstanding Students for winning THREE of their industry sectors (RHS submitted six videos), which were part of the San Bernardino and Riverside counties’ video competition. No other single school from either county won more than once. Jared Powell won for Arts & Communication (Mr. Urbz), Amber Larrogoitiy won for Manufacturing and Product Development (Mr. Meyer), and Lauren Scanlon won for Finance and Business (Mrs. Halquist). I would like give a shoutout to my Advanced AV students that unselfishly assisted in working with these students on their videos (taped, edited, and produced) and Mrs. Rose Urbaszewski was an incredibly organized driving force for all of them. This is a big, big deal. Again, big smiles and congratulations!

Second... I posted more pictures, some videos, and more are coming from Jared, Riley, myself, and a Media School teacher, Micke. I am posting a few as a standard wide picture, but some will be virtual quicktime movies, where you can zoom in and out (Control or Shift keys) and move the picture around. Please try it out and see if it works. The YouTube videos I have posted have been in the top rankings out here, and have been linked with some good online magazines. I was pleasantly surprised!

We leave tomorrow and will be back on Saturday!

Now I will post some words from Jared and Riley. These thoughts will also be posted on Lennart’s blog in Svenska.

***

“My name is Jared Powell, a media student from California. I have been very lucky in getting picked to come to Sweden. The two weeks here were really fun and a big learning experience for me. Going to the media school here was really amazing, with getting to know Swedish students who I had a lot in common with. In many ways, the program here is a lot bigger than what we have at home. On top of that, throughout my couple visits to Europe, I have never met anyone nicer and so very good at English as the people I’ve met in Östersund. There was never a moment I felt unwelcome or uncomfortable, everyone felt like a friend who I hadn’t seen in a long time. I really hope that I can find a way to come back and perhaps go to college here.”

***

“My name is Riley McDonald. I am lucky enough to be here in Sweden through my high school's media exchange program. Some of my main interests are music, video, and anything I can find to do that is fun. I have really enjoyed my stay in Sweden. All of the people I have met here have been very kind and seem a lot more humble than the average American. I really enjoy the relaxed and focused atmosphere that this school has. I found myself a whole lot more creative and productive when I had hours at a time to work on a project instead of the rigid schedule that I'm used to back in California. As far as activities go, I have been to a graduation ceremony, go-karting, Boda Borg, laser tag, ridden a snowmobile, and even milked a cow. I have been staying with a very generous family on their milk farm. Their house is so warm and comforting and they are always trying to make my stay here even better. Being out the the United States has really opened my eyes to the ways other countries run and now I hardly want to go back.”

Hej, hej! It has been quite awhile since I have typed an update. It is not because I have forgotten or had a bout of laziness, but life has been very busy here. I could write pages upon pages, but I have uploaded quite a few pictures and some small video clips, which should give you a sense of what has been happening. For those on Facebook, some of us are posting information there as well.

1) Super Sessions with Jon Olsson in Åre Gallery
2) Jon Olsson YouTube video of the Super Sessions
3) Same movie in the Gallery in case you cannot get YouTube
4) Activities over the past 3 days

and do not forget the other ones you might have forgotten:
5) Week One Gallery (3rd Gallery)
6) http://gallery.me.com/joeurbz/100222 (More Sweden pics from Week One)
7) http://gallery.me.com/joeurbz/100238 (Speed Weekend 2009 • Ice Racing)
8) My YouTube video of the Ice Racing

Here is a summary in list form of what we have been up to:
• Presented our school, ROP program, AV, Auto, and the Swedish Exchange Project to multiple levels of classes. I used the projectors in their classes to present pictures and videos of who we are, what we do, and why we are here, and we hope to share with their visits to the USA and us. We also participated with their class presentations and gave feedback.

• Explored and discussed more of the city, culture, friends, ideas, philosophies, politics, economics and other global issues. Many of the daily issues the teachers face here are almost identical to ours, from student expectations, testing, behaviors, work ethic, production, graduation, budgets, equipment, IT issues, and more. There is no language barrier when it comes to these topics. The understanding is instant after exchanging different terms for translation. It just takes a few words to match, and everything else falls into place.

• After school, Tommy, Magnus, Lennart, and Dave took all of the Exchange students and staff to a place called Multi-Challenge. I have posted pictures for this. This place has everything to explore for young children to adults. The day was treated like a Team Building experience in the corporate world. Everyone had a great time and found something that they really enjoyed. I came in last place in the Go-Kart racing -- whoo hoo!

• After doing my grades for Rim, I helped out Rim Today on Thursday (4 to 5pm for them, 1-2am for me) by remotely interacting with the class to help finish The Office. For those who do not know, I remotely controlled computers and used Skype to be on the TV in the room, to guide the project to the finish, so it could be shown on Friday for them. I also updated the RimToday.tv website with the new episode. I ended up with 4 hours of sleep going into Friday, which was a LONG day (6am to midnight).

• Friday was a somewhat busy day at the Media School. I spent time with Jared & Riley discussing multimedia and classroom strategies that we could bring back to my program. I watched the Journalism/InDesign teacher finish the huge project for the local newspaper, where his students publish basically another newspaper within (and insert section like our major newspapers on Sundays) for the youth in the community. Talk about changes and deadlines! The teacher and some students went home for dinner and came back until 10pm to finish. We participated with some of the Media classes and had a lot of fun. I asked the Photo teacher here to give an assignment to Riley and Jared. He gave them each a Nikon D-50 and an assignment. After school, we went out toward Åre (95 km away) to watch/tape/photograph Jon Olsson’s Super Sessions (the best freeskiers in the world -- this was the largest invitational of its kind in the world). Lasse took us to Åre for dinner (tack!) and we finally hit the slopes, which is over the road via a bridge -- you will see in the gallery. It rained steadily all night and affected our cameras, but it was worth staying for. RIley and Jared took their photos and some video, as I did. I almost got crushed toward the end during the awards ceremony. LOL. I think everyone passed out in the car while Lasse drove us home.

• Saturday started around 10am for me (Joe B, Dave, Tommy, Sofie, Lennart, Yvonne, and others) to go snowmobiling on the frozen (now slushy) lake. There was no rush throughout the day, but the there was a plan. We finally ventured out and met the VTC principal and her husband, who is a master fisherman. There were no fishing poles. This was under-the-ice fishing, which the pictures will show. He explained everything to us. The one issue here is that Spring has come FAST and the melting of the land has begun, so the lake is all super slushy and the ice is thinner, so we could not use the snowmobiles for much. We walked quite a number meters to check out the fishing holes in the ice, and then the next one 30 meters further (there were at least 5 of these). And the slush kept getting slushier. Now, I am short, but my feet were going down where the slush hit my knees). Americans should dump treadmills and walk in this stuff everyday! Back to the fish: in summary, there were 2 BIG trouts caught and one small one. Joe Black got to clobber one in the head. LOL, and we ate it for dinner. After the fishing expedition to the North Pole, we continued our trek to Yvonne and Lennart’s lake house for a good old fashioned BBQ. We just enjoyed the day among friends. The sun came out like a California beach day; a surprisingly amazing day all the way through. As I write this today, its back to pea soup fog and drizzle grey skies. Later in the day, we spent time by Tommy and Sofie’s and their neighbors. Just a gorgeous evening.

• Today is a more lazy day after a hard sleep for most of us. I spent breakfast time with Yvonne and Lennart and started to do laundry. I Skype’d with Jared and shared some pictures and he gave me a virtual camera tour of the home he is staying with. I spent all day working on my photos and this blog. LOTS of photos. I am working on video later this evening from Åre’s events. I want to see if I can create another YouTube video.

• Anyways, tomorrow starts a short week (we leave on Friday). Lots to do, lots to see, and I know it is going to be a blur. I will write what I can, but I may not get enough time to get it all down on paper. Enjoy the galleries and videos!

--Urbz

Happy April Fools’ Day. At least here, it is 20 minutes away, and the locals celebrate it. I have posted another gallery that includes the walkabouts and drive-abouts throughout town over the past two days. Please bookmark this gallery, since I will add more photos to it throughout this first week.

Week One Gallery (3rd Gallery)

These last two days were in stark contrast of each other. One day was non-stop linear going, the other was fluid.

Yesterday, the students and teachers went to their respective schools (Media and VTC). VTC is the Auto School in case you were wondering. I started out with a 2 hour meeting, mostly in Swedish. I asked them to at least tell the jokes in English so I could laugh with them.

The teachers and staff there were so welcoming and hospitable. I think I had like 7 coffee breaks (fika) talking to everyone. Lassé gave Riley, Jared, and I an overall tour of the Media School, the accompanying high school, and the Media Workshop he has been working on for 20+ years in an old courthouse. The pictures in the gallery will show a lot of this. Going into mid-day, some teachers took me to lunch at a local place, and the food was very good -- swedish meatballs, gravy, mashed potatoes, fruit, etc. I am finally getting used to converting Swedish Kronnors to/from USD in my head. The best way is knowing what you pay for food!

After lunch, Joakim, Jared, Riley and I went downtown to explore and shop a bit -- clothes, music, boots, and other goodies. We also observed a day in the city in terms of people and the environment. It turned out to be a very nice day. After walking back to school (a few kilometers), we worked on some green screen / final cut things, talked some more, and found ourselves leaving school after 5pm. Sounds like Rim Today on a Thursday, eh? I just can’t leave on time!

While the students spent time with their respective families, Lennart and Yvonne made Joe Black and I a delicious spaghetti dinner. Then we trekked over to see Dave and Tommy’s family. Just spent the evening yakking and looking at Tommy’s new iMac and iMovies he has finished. We also spent some serious time laughing out loud to YouTube movies about safety in the world. Tears almost flowed.

We returned “home” around 11pm or so. Then I checked my email and found lists of to-do’s from Rim. Ew boy. I also had to get my grades in the system at RHS. It took a bit to do (until 2am). Jet lag was really hitting me. Hard.

This morning (Tuesday), I got to sleep an extra 90 mins in. Dave was coming to get us around 9am, which was cool. He brought Ben and LJ and we had a small breakfast and conversation. Dave took us to VTC for lunch, which was actually not half bad. Ask Joe Black about spaghetti and hot dogs. LOL. All five of us then attended Magnus’ english class for a small group exercise (word games in English). It was a lot of fun. I took a little video of it and Dave took some pictures to show later.

Afterwards, our group went sight-seeing around town. We had fika, and then walked around. From there, we drove around looking for photo spots, which of course you will see in the gallery. Returning to VTC in late afternoon, I perchance found my classroom online (2nd period), which was a lot of fun. I really look forward to your production of Rim Today, not just as a teacher, but as a fan. Either way, I could see the excitement, pride, and teamwork, even on a little computer screen. I sincerely do appreciate your efforts to reach new levels for yourselves. Later on, I visited 4th and 6th periods having some fun. Saying hello to the bosses was fun too... really, it was. . Helping 3D in Room 209, by taking over a computer from Sweden makes me wonder what those students are thinking. My RIM umbilical cord was stretched today.

A couple of Technology blurbs:

I tried the new Skype on iPhone and it works. Although I am not using my phone out here due to international rates being crazy expensive, I can attach to wireless networks and use VoIP (like Vonage and MagicJack) to call people on Skype or SkypeOut (regular calls for like 2 cents a minute). So, the phone must be on a Wi-Fi network to be used. But that helps me a lot. How much? Free. Does it work on an iTouch/Wi-Fi? Check it out.

Skype is popular due to the multiple operating systems it works on. However, it is a resource hog and slows down computers. I prefer to use iChat, but the video does not go through this year when connecting to RHS. At home it works fine. iChat’s quality blows Skype away IMHO and i can share movies, clips, and pictures so easy. However, I am stuck with Skype for now.

Magic Jack works as advertised. Joe Black uses it a lot to call home, and people can call us and leave voice emails that go to our emails. It has been pretty good quality and easy to use. Radio Shack sells it. I am using MJ on the little Acer Aspire One Netbook, and it does just fine.

I also tried using logmein.com. This is not very reliable, regardless of browser. I have been disappointed so far. Hit or miss, mostly miss. Instead, I use Apple Remote Desktop. If iChat worked with video, I could take over any mac much easier with the built in tools of Leopard. I should have went with a VPN.

My Canon XSi camera, with multiple lenses, has continued to surprised me with its performace. I am no professional, but it makes photography fun. I use a little Fuji z20, but the white balance is bleh at times. Drives me nuts. Photoshop sounds good, but not at 500+ pics per every few days. I know, Mrs. Barcus, batch processing might work for this issue. LOL. We shall see.

Last but not least: iMovie ’09 for that YouTube / Mac Gallery movie I did. iMovie performed, fast (my machine is 2.5 yrs old). Remember, the final product was for the web, not a DVD. BIG difference. It took me 3 hours to figure out the best way to get a HQ movie onto YouTube without a week long upload time. Ironically, Apple just released updates to iMovie that night that made everything better. It works, and it is easy to do, even at high quality. I will explain more in class. The editing took 6 hours, but I am a perfectionist, and I used a lot of image smoothing/stabilization. Yes, I admit it, but not high percentages, but a little to help along. That took the most time with the editing. Just something to think about AVer’s. Tommy here does a great job with it. I need to get him ’09 (he is stuck with crappy ‘08).

Ok, time for bed. We shall see what the next few days brings at the Media School. I am going back into work/troubleshooting mode. I am going to see if I can help with Leopard speak with their Novell server. Tiger does, but something changed in Leopard, so if I can fix it here, they would be ecstatic. Cross your fingers!

Again, April Fools’ Day!

Urbz

Good evening. Today was the time change in Sweden. Woohoo! Lost another hour. So although Tiger Woods is about to tee it up at 2:49pm in Florida, the PBA (Bowling Pros) are not starting the finals until mid-afternoon, NASCAR just started its race, and my son, Justin, is playing Bingo in Wisconsin, it is almost bed time here. And no, I have not found the magic almanac to find all the winners ála Back to the Future 2. However, watching Tommy in his special welding glasses during some auto-body work here reminds me of Dr. Brown’s character from those moves. But I digress.

I have some updates from the local press about some of the happenings here:
My YouTube video of the Ice Racing (6 hours of editing, 3 hours to get it to YouTube)
And if you cannot get YouTube going, click here for the video. Excellent quality!
The OP Coverage from the Ice Racing. (excellent gallery of pics)
Coverage of the accident we witnessed feet from our van.

Well, where do I start? It is 1am locally here, and after a LONG day, I am trying to catch up with this blog, finances, family and student communication, restarting the ROP server from here, and editing a small movie while trying to the feeling back into my fingers and toes (yes, it is VERY cold here). I just updated a boat-load of pictures, and soon (I hope) I will get a small YouTube video going from the weekend’s racing festivities. Here are the updated links (although you may have seen some of the pics already, I keep adding to the galleries. My software makes it easy.)

http://gallery.me.com/joeurbz/100222 (More Sweden pics from Week One)
http://gallery.me.com/joeurbz/100238 (Speed Weekend 2009 • Ice Racing)

After spending about an hour touring Stockholm during the day (we went from the Palace and through Old Town), we finally trekked back to the Arlanda Express (train) and hopped our flight to Östersund via SAS. We had to check-in with self-service kiosks that print out your own bag tags/stickers, and then have them weighed and taken. We did not wait that long to get on the smaller plane for the hour flight. As Dave said, Stockholm to Östersund is like flying to San Francisco from LA.

Getting off the plane via the rear end outside in Östersund was quite a blast from Jack Frost. Wow, what a brisk reminder that we are not in Kansas (or Lake Arrowhead) anymore. LOL. However, the warm hospitality of our hosts was (and is) just wonderful. Lasse, the Media School Teacher, came and found us with the other teachers. We grabbed our baggage (which is a VERY good thing this year), and off we went to the different schools. Dave, Tommy, Magnus, Lennart, Ben, and LJ went to VTC (the Auto School). Riley, Jared, and I went with Lasse to visit the Media School. I know our students were very nervous. Once they visited the schools and their counterparts, most of the nervousness went away. However, the expectations of this experience rose, which is excellent.

After fika at VTC, everyone went their respective ways. Later in the night, Dave and I heard from our students and could hear the collective sighs of settling-in. Some of us ate Thai food and our stomachs were very happy. Sounds like time for rest, eh? For some of us, that would be incorrect (with laughter).

Some of the students went Kart racing today, some “chilled” and enjoyed their Saturday. The adults went to visit the 1st annual event called Speed Weekend 2009. We woke up around 5:30am and drove about 3 hours there while it was snowing, with icy roads, in a VW van (mini-van if you will). How bad was the weather looking in the morning? While driving there, we witnessed a 4-car serious accident feet away from our van at an intersection. Oh boy, that was close. Nonetheless, we kept on. It was a cold day. The cameras and video camera would not even focus properly at times. But the fans were out to see something new and exciting. When you go through the pics, I think you get the gist of it. Maybe I can get Dave and Tommy to give me a better description for this blog about what was trying to be accomplished by the event. I do know that this was the first event of its kind to try and reach a new land speed record on ice (frozen lake). And ANYone who registered could try for it. We saw some interesting attempts, plus a lot of fast snowmobile drag racing. Even a guy with a jet engine on his contraption almost got his pants on fire. I hope to have a short video of some of this for YouTube soon.

We finished the day having pizza -- Swedish pizza -- at Tony’s Pizzeria. The cook looked like a Tony (all in good fun). Tommy drove SO many kilometers today. He says he is used to it. I believe him, but that many km on so much ICE (or IS in Svenska) for so long? I tip my polar cap to him.

We start school on Monday. The VTC and Media Schools are a few minutes apart in town, so we can visit both throughout the weeks. I know our students have a lot to do while enjoying everything. If you have any questions, email us, or use the comments section.

We still lost Thursday after 24 hours of traveling! Everything is else going very well. Sunday, I HOPE is a day of rest. My first teacher meeting the Media School is Monday at 8am.

--Urbz

We are now here, 12:30am local time, in Stockholm, and with our luggage no less! The flights were long and pretty smooth, outside of some turbulence. The landing into Stockholm was like an older wooden roller coaster ending quickly; a little scary. Tomorrow, we are off to Östersund!

Here is a link to some pictures. Keep checking on this gallery, as it is sure to grow!
http://gallery.me.com/joeurbz/100222



Laterz!

While packing and checking-in to our flights online, I looked at the weather forecast.

Snow, snow, and more snow, with some of the cold going into the 30’s. LOL. I am not even thinking about bringing any athletic shoes! Moreover, trying to stay within 44 lbs of luggage is hard too. The bag is like 10 lbs to start with! Our seats are WAYYY back in the plane. Lesson plans are ready for my classes, and it is time for bed. I get to teach our ROP department how to utilize the new school website, so teachers can make their own class pages. Niterz.

The first project we are going to provide media coverage is the Speed Weekend races on the frozen lake. This ought to be VERY interesting. The day after we arrive is the "Land Speed Record" attempt on ice, and Tommy was going to try to arrange it so everyone could go to see it. They have quite a few entries, so it should be a kind of a "Car Show" as well.

We are now prepping for the 2009 version of the Sweden Exchange Project. I will continue to put a bunch of links on this site. Stay tunes for more news!