On Thursday, for example, we spent the morning on the R/V Hope Hudner, one of URI's research vessels, looking at some of the working waterfront in Providence. Heaps of coal, mounds of scrap metal, a sinking Soviet submarine and the director of local emergency preparedness — all these were remarkable to a rural chick like myself. John Torgan of Save the Bay talked about how far the Providence River has come since he was a boy, and how many other challenges it faces in the future. Lt. Col. Peter Gaynor pointed out a few of the many surveillance cameras trained upon the waterway, and told me that this bay was one of the most extensively monitored of any on the Eastern seaboard. I was impressed that he was even on the boat, given the papers I imagine are on his desk and the numbers on his speed dial.
In the afternoon, we took part in a great workshop with Terry Schwadron, who leads the Computer Assisted Reporting (CAR) team at the New York Times. I have an amazing list of web sites and ideas that might apply to what I do back in Oregon. Then, the lecture with Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism gave us the good news, along with the obvious bad news, of the industry.
The dinner-reception, at the Bay Voyage Inn in Jamestown, was outstanding. I was seated next to Peggy Sharpe, who donates to many environmental causes including the Metcalf Institute, and really enjoyed our talk. I later chatted with her husband, Henry, who on request did his version of an old-timer from Maine. He also told me that he knew the fellow who did the old "Bert and I" tapes, which is the place I heard it to begin with. I wish I had had my tape recorder, and that the room hadn't been so loud. It was a wonderful moment.
I'm posting a quick video of Terry Schwadron, talking about noep.mbari.org, a national database of ocean info.
