Forever Fall Bounty...
AIE
Academy of Interactive Entertianment
Australia - Seattle,WA & now Lafayette, LA
US Head of School and Programming Teacher - Dr. Chris Erhardt
Professor Christopher Erhardt is currently Head of School-US Campuses for the Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE) in Australia.
In 2008 Dr. Erhardt ran a game training facility in India where he designed and produced 3 commercial titles using students and faculty from his program.
From 1998-2007 he was the Associate Dean as well as V.P.-Production for DigiPen Institute of Technologies in the United States.
Prior to 1998 Dr. Erhardt was producer, designer and project director of over 24 consumer based video game titles on multiple platforms for publishers such as Electronic Arts, Infogrammes, GT Interactive, Infocom and Activision and successfully ran development teams in Russia, France, England and the United States.
Dr. Erhardt currently splits his time between Seattle Washington, Lafayette Louisiana and Canberra Australia.
He holds a PhD in international business, a MS in business sciences and a BS in organizational behavior.
(note: met him at Cafe Vermillionville, speaking at 6 - 7:30pm, on Oct 28, 2011 - per Julie Calzone who posted on Facebook on AFF Lafayette Page...or I would not have known anything about it...)
Link to the news on Calzone & Assoc's webpage...
http://calzone.com/newsMessage?id=1197
“We evaluated many locations in the south and along the southeastern seaboard of the United States and selected Louisiana because of the aggressive marketing they are doing to bring studios, developers and post production facilities to the state” says Dr. Christopher Erhardt, Head of School-Offshore for the AIE. “From our base of operations in Lafayette we plan on maintaining solid outreach to New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport with focused certification programs and course content for their specific digital media needs."
AIE Lafayette, LA School Location...
Lite CenterAddress:
Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise
Placement on map is approximate
Lafayette, LA 70506, United States |
Note: an aside...on their webpage they have a 'Gallery' of Projects--I love this one...
Williams Cafe - After Transformation - a Visualization
(note: go to their webpage to find the "Before" - I'd love to walk the streets of say downtown Lafayette, around the edges, & Visualize all the rundown houses or empty lots to make them into this "After" - at first as a webproject & then for Real?!)
Back to AIE...
Link to their webpage...
http://www.theaie.us/
Link to Campuses - Louisiana...
http://www.theaie.us/Campuses/Louisiana
Link to an AIE project...
George Rodrigue Foundation for art, especially kid's art - which an AIE student/s or graduate did an interactive program for elementary school kids using the Blue Dog for the Foundation, that I don't find a link to right off but we saw it at the talk briefly on Dr Chris Echardt's laptop...
http://www.georgerodriguefoundation.org/site.php
Wait here's the link to the iPad App for You Can Count on Blue Dog & Blue Dog 123...
http://georgerodriguefoundation.blogspot.com/2011/01/artist-george-rodrigues-blue-dog-goes.html
"The new app is the first app by internationally renowned Cajun artist, author, and creator of the Blue Dog series, George Rodrigue. The app was created in conjunction with the Louisiana Digital Gaming Initiative (LDGI) and the Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE). LGDI introduced AIE to Rodrigue and then three students at AIE’s Canberra, Australia campus created and programmed the app in their free-time outside of their coursework."
"I could not have been more thrilled than when the Academy of Interactive Entertainment’s students chose this app as their class project. Like the app itself, its creation by students once again reinforces the goals of GRFA.”
George Rodrigue painting - Education & Art - from the Foundation webpage...
(note: Passing on to the next generation is big with George & his Arts Foundation - so it's great he's also embraced the 'digital arts' as well?!)
Next talk by Dr Chris Echardt will be at the Lite Center next month, November 9th, the time yet to be announced, prob 6 - 7:00pm, to hear about/see AIE's school there & find out more about Dr Chris Echardt too...
*Update: Jolie's will be the location instead of the Lite Center (which we can only hope, fingers crossed, that there's lovely Jolie's foodie snick snacks to be had while listening to the talk?!)
And it's being held November 10th on Thursday instead at 6-8:00pm for the time, so you could do dinner at Jolie's afterwards...mmm...a tasty creative idea...
Courses offered in at AIE:
Game Art & Design
Game Programming
3D Annimation for Film & TV
Degree Program
Short Courses
Summer Camp
(note: it's hard to believe that something as big as this, besides the Lite Center being here, is being offered to students here in Lafayette, LA - if my oldest son was just now getting out of High School this would be a perfect fit for him...& what may you ask did he do instead, went to colleges - yes, plural - then joined the Navy, where he still is to date...working with computers?!)
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LA Book Festival 2011
Baton Rouge, LA
Authors I managed to go sit in on their talks...
Magic's in the Bag:
Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags & Sachets
Cheré Dastugue Coen is an award-winning journalist, instructor of writing, playwright, novelist and cookbook author. Her latest books are Magic’s in the Bag: Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags and Sachets, Exploring Cajun Country: A Historic Tour of Acadiana and Cooking in Cajun Country. A native of New Orleans, Cheré now makes her home in Lafayette.
SCHEDULE
2:45 PM – 3:15 PM
Senate Committee Room C
Book Talk
Get Your Mojo Working: Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags & Sachets
Book Signing
3:30 PM – 4:15 PM
Link to this description above about the Author...
http://www.louisianabookfestival.org/Author_Coen.html
Authors Blog...
http://havebookswilltravelletseat.blogspot.com/
Authors Other Blog...
http://www.louisianabooknews.com/
(note: she's my new writerly friend in Lafayette & she intro'd me to two of her friends there at the LA Book Fest too--the Atwoods, of which one gave me their book so I had to buy the other one's book to have the couple's books...as yet have not read either, one will be poetry reading & the other one looks like fun reading...)
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Kody Chamberlain (Louisiana) is a writer, artist, and designer mostly working in comics and graphic novels. He recently completed the award-winning crime series
Sweets: A New Orleans Crime Story from Image Comics. Chamberlain is also the co-creator of
Punks: The Comic soon to be released from MTV Geek. Other credits include Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Paramount, Universal, HarperCollins, and Warner Brothers.
SCHEDULE
2 PM - 3 PM
State Museum, Auditorium
Discussion
Pens and Pistols: A Roundtable featuring today's Crime Comic All-Stars *
Book Signing
3:15 PM - 4 PM
* Howard Chaykin & Victor Gischler w/Brannon Costello
Link to above descrition about the author...
http://www.louisianabookfestival.org/Author_Chamberlain.html
(note: I've met Kody at AcA when he was signing his newly published graphic novel, Sweets, & I now have bought a number of copies--I think 5 copies now, to give away...but did manage to keep 1 copy, that I've read & enjoyed though there are crime scenes in it--after TV/Movies or living in 3 foreign countries, as well as Houston, TX...at the time touted as a Top 10 Worst Crime City--I think I can handle a graphic novel about NOLA?! I love the parts about New Orleans I know of & also the people he's used to draw characters in the novel, like our very own coffeeman, Floyd, from Americas Coffeehouse in downtown Lafayette...among others, which I think I've only met 1 other I've heard he used in his novel...so far...)
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Robert Olen Butler
Robert Olen Butler is the author of twelve novels, six story collections, and a book on the creative process, From Where You Dream. In addition to a Pulitzer Prize and National Magazine Awards, he has received a Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction and an NEA grant, as well as the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He teaches creative writing at Florida State University.
SCHEDULE
3:15 PM – 4 PM
House Committee Room 1
Book Talk
A Small Hotel
Book Signing
4:15 PM – 5 PM
Author's Web Site
Link to this above description of the author...
http://www.louisianabookfestival.org/Author_RButler.html
(note: I did not buy this book, nor did I step up to the Authors Book Signing table either - as he had a queque & "What would I say?" "I heard you speak, thank you for reading, can you sign my book?" At this point in time I do not need anymore books on my bedside or I will have a tower of babble going on to the sky...I chose instead to buy my friend's friend book - who I'm just guessing, is 'not' as famous - to see how she writes, plus her book sounded funny & as her husband also gave me his poetry book - which is most endearing, I was immediately curious about their separate writing worlds...)
Another author I recognized & stopped to chat with out on the park grounds in front of the Capitol...
Sheryl St. Germain directs the MFA program in Creative Writing at Chatham University. Her books include Going Home, The Mask of Medusa, Making Bread at Midnight, How Heavy the Breath of God, and The Journals of Scheherazade. She has also published a book of translations of Cajun poet Jean Arceneaux, Je Suis Cadien. A book of lyric essays, Swamp Songs: The Making of an Unruly Woman, was published in 2003 and Navigating Disaster, a collection of Louisiana essays, will be published in 2012.
SCHEDULE
11:45 AM – 12:30 PM
House Committee Room 2
Discussion
Between Song and Story: a Conversation about New Forms of the Essay
12:45 PM – 1:45 PM
State Library, Capitol View Room
Reading
The Wetlands Panel
2:45 PM – 3:15 PM
State Library, Capitol View Room
Discussion
Julie Kane and Sheryl St. Germain
Book Signing
3:30 PM – 4:15 PM
Link to her description above...
http://www.louisianabookfestival.org/Author_StGermain.html
(note: I knew her name from when I use to take Creative Writing classes for years, the 2nd time I lived here in Lafayette, as well as from Deep South Writer's Conferences--am sure she must of spoke at one of them...we nearly brushed elbows at the book tables under the B&N tent, as she wheeled her luggage around--that now I'm guessing may have had her books in it, but I didn't ask...then I thought she was leaving her hotel after being an author/speaker as I could see her name tag at the end of a lanyard around her neck...so finally passing her out in the open I had to take my chance & say Hello, I think I know you - which I knew her/her name, but she of course would not remember me...found out she is not living in Lafayette, nor Louisiana either-but of course has family/friends/roots her I think which bring her back...I especially liked the project she had currently been working on about Song & Story--my friend who's written a Singing Meditation Book I knew would love her book...now am kicking myself--shoulda/woulda/coulda asked her for her book & for her to sign it for my friend, then give it to said friend as a gift for Christmas?! but I let her walk away, as I went to the Beverage counter for a CC's Coffee to go & went wandering off to the Exhibitors tents...)
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Link to LA Book Festival page...
http://www.louisianabookfestival.org/
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Bitches 'n Witches
Halloween Party
Invited & instantly sweated out a costume idea-skipped the Bitches instead went for the Witches...
Googled TV/Movie Witches--thought about something between Hocus Pocus (Disney) & the Eastwick (aka sexy) Witches, not Harry Potter or Bewitched or OZ (didn't feel like painting myself green for that last one...)
Hocus Pocus - the 3 witches...(recognize any of them?)
Thinking there are so many cliche witch characters & pieces to what makes up a witch, in myth, in stories, in history...
So to make a witch--there is a hat, there is a broom, there is a wand, there is wearing black, there could be a wart on the face or be darkly beautiful...
there are webpages full of costumes & at a pretty penny (make that dollar) too...
For days I would pick up 'bits & bobs' (as my British friends loved to call that 'hunting & gathering' technique): striped thigh high socks, black & white wavy long haired wig, black lipstick/nail polish, purple eyeliner, shimmery eyelashes (that didn't stick so tossed them in the end,) out walking the dogs-a long but thin & curved with park of the bark left on a hand-hold stick to use as none other than a wand, a proper broom, a black dress, a black/white striped top, layered w/a thin black top & black gauze, black boots, black bee earrings, tiny sticks (again out walking the dogs) to put in the hair under the tiny purple witchy headband hat, a plastic cauldron, black eye pencil, feathered black boa, necklace of feathers (tho white) & leather/beads (that just looked right) & purple fresh flowers to take the hostess of the Bitches 'n Witches party, of course...being out of any 'eye of newt' to take instead right?!
"I'll get you my pretty & your little dog Toto too..." (did she say that? I seem to remember she did...)
Of course the 'classic' & green Wicked Witch of the West...not the Good Witch of the North, Glinda...nor the curled up black/white striped socks & ruby red slippers of the Wicked Witch of the East...
another classic witch image, w/a house on top of her--you can buy black & white socks & of course Ruby Red Slippers (here at the Party Store even, for a price...I've been to the Land of OZ Museum in Kansas & I've seen a 'real' pair of Ruby Red Slippers, behind glass mind you--there are ones also made of Swarovski's Crystals even...but that's another story for another time, when we can be off to see the wizard...)
It was more fun to see all the other Witches costumes--you may ask right off, where are the photos? there are none--we were too busy having fun I guess...comparing costumes, eating gumbo--from a big black cauldron over the fire right?! hah--not in this story...
After drinking of 'Bat's blood' or other properly named Halloween Cocktails there was...
Reading of the Tarot Cards--haven't done that since prob High School...but Oh my the truths that came out in those three little turned over cards...(we skipped the Ouija Board, due to mention of other years where it was tried & it failed to move, hmmm...)
Getting historical romance novels as party favors, many with bare chested men on them or the word Vampire in the titles (one I think was called Sex, Lies & Vampires--I will not say that was clever...) My book review of mine will be for another time, maybe by next Halloween for the next party when we'll swap books?!
Harry Potter evil witch, Belletrix - Helana Botham Carter in costume w/her wand...
(looking at it & wondering how to make this costume, one year...or the hair, now witchy black shoes could be fun...)
My fav Witches costume of the night, strange no one went for the Bitches costumes, was the ex-military woman in her old green cammo fatigues, complete with black boots & her black witches hat ontop of her bright orange neon long hair...(made me think of my son's a bit, both being in the military trying to have fun on the holidays...)
think of this long neon green hair, w/plain black witches hat instead...
worn w/army fatigues & black boots--then you have my fav costume of the night...
No magic spells were performed by waving our wands (nor for sure by wrinkling our noses) & no riding of the brooms thru the night sky over the house & ??? what else are witches suppose to do on Halloween?! Who's to say, but we had a Witchy Good Time no matter...
Laissez les bons temps rouler des sorcières?!
note:
if you look up Witches Wands, you'll find Wands & this in Wikipedia - tho it refers to this as the First Magical Wand was in the Odyssey...
Circe painted in 1891 by John William Waterhouse - now I'm asking myself Where is the Wand? there is a cup yes in her right hand, so is that a wand in her left hand, if I look in the mirror behind her then I see a really long wooden one as if I sword possibly or a whole tree branch...
but now too I'm looking at this & wondering, again, how easy to make this witches costume all out of gauze (tho mine will have a lining-as I'm not a witch, nor a goddess, nor being painted romantically by a painter in the 1800's?!)
My Witches costume for next year--Circe...it will take a lot of gauze...After Halloween Sales here I come?!
Will be bulking up on all things Witchy too for next year's Bitches 'n Witches party, so with that--What Do Witches Say? (Oh, yes you can Google this...)
Among Witches there are special greetings.
Some of them are "Merry Meet!", "Blessed Be!", "Brightest Blessings", "Love and Light"
I think I'll go with "Love & Light Y'all?!"
Read more:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_do_witches_say_and_do#ixzz1cR6F4xIb
