geek.teacher

Before I kick off my 2011 in earnest, I figured I’d take a moment to just sit back and look at the holy crap, I can’t believe how awesome this year was.

So here’s a very random summation of my favorite things from the past year. No, you do not get a new car.

Favorite new job: Technology Integration Specialist at Pine Glen School. I really can’t believe I get paid to work with a bunch of teachers who really care about kids and are willing to try new stuff with their students. It’s not been without its challenges, but I really love this job.

Favorite city to move to: I still miss Philadelphia, but Boston is a great place to live. Great public transportation system takes me to work and frequently downtown into the city, which is an eminently walkable place.

Favorite conference to organize: You already know the answer to this is Edcamp Philly. Look for the sequel this year, as well as Edcamp Boston in May!

Favorite personal triumph: My photo hanging in an art gallery.

Favorite thing to find out I’m good at: I’m not terrible at providing meaningful professional development sessions.

Favorite city I visited: Washington, DC. I went twice, on the coldest days and the hottest days of the year there. I had a good time on both occasions.

Favorite new piece of technology: The iPad. I had access to one for a few months, and it took up almost all of the time I previously spent on my computer. I think that if the new version this year comes through with the hoped-for built-in cameras, it’s going to make for an incredibly strong learning device for the classroom that’s going to be hard to match at the price Apple’s selling it for.

Favorite books: For fiction, it would have to be the book that I just finished on New Year’s Eve, Cast of Shadows by Kevin Guifoile, a meticulously written near-future science fiction murder mystery about cloning and online gaming that repeatedly blew my mind. For nonfiction, Dark Tide by Stephen Puleo is actually both fascinating and has very strong writing. It tells the tale of the Boston Molasses Flood of 1919, and Puleo smartly weaves the strands of American life in World War I throughout the story. I came for the molasses, I stayed for the tales of immigrants and anarchists. Special consideration goes to Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth-Grahame Smith for deftly blending fiction and non-fiction in the funniest thing I read all year. For children’s books, the best thing I read was Savvy by Ingrid Law, a book that reads like the X-Men meets typical Young Adult coming-of-age story, but with probably the most unique verbal style out of anything that I read all year.

Favorite movie: Other movies may have been better, but I most enjoyed Scott Pilgrim vs. the World out of any of the new movies I saw in 2010. It was just pure fun.

Favorite TV shows: Community is the funniest thing on television right now, and The Walking Dead smartly surprises even people who have read the comics by changing things up in smart ways.

Favorite album: Florence and the Machine’s Lungs is pretty much designed with me in mind. Female vocals, orchestral strings, unique percussion, and it rocks? This album grabbed me from the first listen and still hasn’t let go.

Favorite video game: Mass Effect 2. Pretty much every change they made from the first one was for the better.

My Ten Favorite Photos I Took: Click here to view the set on Flickr.

Comics:

• Blue Beetle #26 – A nearly all Spanish issue, and a delightful story that I (mostly) was able to understand
• DCU #0 – a decent introduction to the DC universe as of RIGHT NOW before things go crazy in Final Crisis
• Immortal Iron Fist #14 – if they ever get around to making that Iron Fist movie, it should be just like this.
• New Avengers #40 – Rewind to past events we glimpsed or had some ideas about from before and get a clearer picture of how the Secret Invasion started
• Thor Ages of Thunder – this book was beautiful and touched my mythology nerd core in all the right places
• American Way – I bought this trade at New York Comic Con for cheap based on vaguely remembering some internet recommendations, and I was not disappointed.  It’s a real world approach to superheroes, placing them in the midst of the civil rights upheavals of the sixties.
• Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle – I was at Borders and saw a copy of this opened on the shelf, so I took the opportunity to sit down and read it before the movie came out this week.  It’s a 30 year old story, and it’s great.  It was also pretty shocking at one point.

TV:

• How I Met Your Mother – some decent fallout from last week which could lead to some shift in the characters
• House – Nice joke played on the peons this week.

Movies:

• Iron Man – Awesome.  Great summer popcorn flick.

Games:

• Just Cause – I wrapped this game up.  It was actually a pretty cool ending that made use of the stunt system nicely.  As I said before, a decent enough $15 game, but not much more than that.  Clocked time, 25 hours or so, but you could do all of the story missions in under 5 hours easily if you don’t run around liberating villages, finding collectibles, and doing sidemissions.
• Mario Kart Wii – I’m really liking this so far.  Beth also enjoys it.  She plays with the steering wheel, while I prefer the wiimote + nunchuck.

In the last week, here’s what I’ve been reading/watching/playing:

Books:

• Our Dumb World by The Onion – This has been bedtime reading for a while now.  It’s great parody of an atlas, as it’s very dense but often hilarious.  For example, this bit on Hong Kong:

An exotic seaport off the coast of China, the Hong Kong province is plagued by massive, well-choreographed brawls that break out almost daily on every street corner.  The dazzling, high-speed, and acrobatic violence puts every citizen at constant risk of being thrown off a two-story balcony onto a pile of cardboard boxes.

• The Incredible Indoor Games Book by Bob Gregson – I haven’t looked at this book in years, and it reminded me of some fun games that I was able to play with my students for PAT on Friday.

Comics – I read almost everything, so some highlights and low points:

• Countdown #1 -  I already trashed this.
• Fables #72 – Cinderella is awesome.
• Mighty Avengers #12 – If you’re reading Secret Invasion and not reading everything else Bendis is writing at the moment, you’re nuts.
• New Exiles #5 – I already trashed this one, too.
• Ultimate Spider-Man #121 – The only Bendis book you don’t need to read if you want to keep up with Secret Invasion, and it, too, is great.  This is a nice done in one story that wraps up the typical high school baby project for health class.

TV:

• How I Met Your Mother – More Robin Sparkles?  Thank you!  Bonus for The Dawson balding.
• 30 Rock – Some delightful continuity this week that’s going to lead to interesting places, and, even better, more Will Arnett on my TV.  It also had my favorite line of the week.
• Lost – Poor Sayid.

Games:

• Just Cause – While it’s certainly not a great game, it was worth the $15 I spent on it.  It’s a fairly simple open world game overall, but I just find the concept of freeing tiny villages from tyrannical rule very appealing for some reason and always want to do just one more.  A grappling hook and a parachute both go a long way to making the typical open world experience more fun.
• Crackdown – This was another $15 game, and it was way more enjoyable than I thought it would be.  I finished up the co-op campaign with Brian, and it was pretty fun.  Again, having a fun way to move through the open world with awesome jumping abilities definitely improved the open world gaming experience for me.