Notebook of Sand

• Recent Publications
• Recent Projects
• Conferences & Speaking
"Comparing Spatial Hypertext Collections"
  ACM Hypertext '09
"Archiving and Sharing Your Tinderbox"
  Tinderbox Weekend London '09
"The Electronic Nature of Future Literatures"
  Literary Studies Now, Apr '09
"The World University Project"
  St. John's Col. Cambridge, Feb '09
"Ethical Explanations,"
  The New Knowledge Forge, Jun '08
Lecture, Cambridge University
  Tragedy in E-Lit, Nov '07
Hypertext '07: Tragedy in E-Lit
Host for Tinderbox Cambridge '07
Keynote: Dickinson State Uni Conf
Upper Midwest NCHC'07: Speaker
eNarrative 6: Creative Nonfiction
HT'05: "Philadelphia Fullerine"
  Nelson award winning paper
NCHC '05:
 Nurturing Independent Scholarship
Riddick Practicum:
  Building Meeting Good Will
NCHC '04:
  Philadelphia Fullerine
  Lecture on American Studies
WWW@10: Nonfiction on the Web
NCHC '03: Parliamentary Procedure
ELL '03 -- Gawain Superstar
• (a)Musing (ad)Dictions:

Ideas. Tools. Art. Build --not buy. What works, what doesn't. Enjoy new media and software aesthetics at Tekka.

Theodore Gray (The Magic Black Box)

Faith, Life, Art, Academics. Sermons from my family away from home: Eden Chapel!

My other home: The Cambridge Union Society (in 2007, I designed our [Fresher's Guide])

The Economist daily news analysis

Global Higher Ed blog

• Hypertext/Writing

Writing the Living Web

Chief Scientist of Eastgate Systems, hypertext expert Mark Bernstein. (Electronic) Literature, cooking, art, etc.

Fabulous game reviews at playthisthing.

• Stats

Chapter I: Born. Lived. Died.

There is a Chapter II.

Locale: Lancaster County Pa, USA

Lineage: Guatemala

Religion: My faith is the primary focus of my life, influencing each part of me. I have been forgiven, cleansed, and empowered by Jesus Christ. Without him, I am a very thoughtful, competent idiot. With him, I am all I need to be, all I could ever hope for. I oppose institutional religious stagnation, but getting together with others is a good idea. God is real. Jesus Christ is his Son, and the Bible is true. Faith is not human effort. It's human choice. I try to be the most listening, understanding, and generous person I can.

Interests: Anything I can learn. Training and experience in new media, computer science, anglophone literature, education, parliamentary debate, democratic procedure, sculpture, and trumpet performance. Next: applied & computational linguistics, probably.

Education: Private school K-3. Home educated 4-12. Graduated Summa Cum Laude from Elizabethtown College in Jan 2006. As the 2006 Davies-Jackson Scholar, I studied English at St. John's College, Cambridge University from 2006 - 2008.

Memberships: Eden Baptist, Cambridge Union Society, ACM, AIP, GPA.

Alum of the Elizabethtown College Honors Program, sponsored by the Hershey Company.

Campus Wildlife At Spring
Sunday, 30 May 2004 :-:

Now that the semester is over, I'm able to open my eyes and see nature's fully-emerged springtime joy.

** * **

Wednesday was very hot, and the ants, who have no air conditioners, fled their subterranean passageways to frolic in the breeze.

Ants fleeing over the hot concrete

Walking on concrete must have burned their feet.

** * **

Thursday, the rabbits came out. Elizabethtown College hosts a beautiful campus full of colorful trees, fresh landscaping, and green green grass. The rabbits agreed and were enjoying a tasty snack as I walked into work.

Rabbits munching on the cool grass in front of Etown College's Alpha Hall in the springtime

Many rabbits call Etown College their home. They are very used to humans around, and they often let me come close to them. I know it's springtime when, walking between classes, I see the friendly rabbits.

** * **

The landscapers work hard at the college. They must be annoyed by the slime molds that have surfaced the last few days.

Slime molds up close

Slime molds are one of my favorite organisms. They are a reminder of how amazing God's creation truly is.

If you see a slime mold, don't remove it. What you're seeing is just a very very small part of the slime mold: the reproductive system. Slime molds are blobs of goop that live undernead the ground and flow through dirt! They can travel in a flow or in a tiny thread only a few cells wide. Many slime molds live underground, and if you see a number of spore-slimes poke their heads up within an area, they're likely all from the same slime mold, which could stretch for hundreds of yards underneath the ground.

Detail of Slime Mold

If you remove the above-ground part of the slime mold, it'll just pop its head up again. Wait for the head to die and turn dark brown. Then remove it.

The slime will have passed on.